The Story So Far...

Hi There!

My Name's Sid and Diesel is my 11 month old Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross American Bulldog, who is dog agressive. I've created this blog as a place to post about our training, our progress, our setbacks, and as a place for me to occasionally vent when it all gets too much!

So.. The story so far...

Diesel came to us about 2 months ago, though we had known about him since he was around 6 months old. All our dogs have been rehomes and when Diesel's owner found out we were suckers for dogs in need of a home he asked us if we'd take him. By that point Diesel was in his 2nd home (not counting the breeder), by the time diesel came to us at 9 months old he had been passed back and forth a further 2 times.

We were told he was both dog and people friendly, having previously lived with 2 dogs, this was important to us as we already had 3 Siberian Huskies. Introducing him into the pack didn't go smoothly however, and he tried to attack each of our dogs, including the two bitches. We put it down to the stress of travelling and being moved around again (he had travelled to Ipswich from London), the next day we bought him a muzzle so he could meet the dogs safely without the restrictions of a lead, and after a few hours he was much less stressed and soon settled into life as part of a pack.

We thought that was the end of his issues, figured he was just stressed and that was over with, he had always greeted outside dogs politely, never giving us any indication of agression, so when we decided to take the dogs to the offlead dog park to play, it was only natural he came with us.

Bad mistake, after just 5 minutes he was highly stressed, he was panting (though it was cold), he was shaking, his eyes were bloodshot and any dog who came near him was a target for his agression. We were shocked, and he was taken home, leaving me at the park with the others to calm down (and let the huskies have some fun!).

Since that day he has shown agression to every dog he has met out on walks, he can no longer go offlead and has to be muzzled, though he has fantastic recall and will not actively approach another dog, I can not risk him biting an out of control dog who comes bounding over to 'say hi'.

So that's the story so far. We are working on his issues in the hope that he will soon become a happy, confident dog, rather than the stressed out pooch he currently is. He'll likely never visit a dog park again, but as long as he can enjoy a walk without getting stressed at the sight of another dog I will be happy.

Sid & Diesel