reasons why dogs turn on their owners. Looking for medical, psycological, and any other reason.?

Question

Had a 2 year old doberman very loving, obediaent, and smart for 1.5 years. Rescued when 7 months and had biten and would be un ruley when he got too stimulated about something. Did serious training and turned to be best dog every. One day started chasing sounds of traffic along my cement wall barking and get into a red zone. Started correcting by holding fur under chin and gently laying on ground till calm. Last week very bad high and as soon as I touched him he attacked me for approx a minute in a rage leaving me with very serious injuries. I had to put him down, always in my mind he had this potential against others but am very confused and still love him. I think it was his breeding since I traced it back to a well known puppy mill who specializes in size (King Dobies). I would like to get around this issue I am in turmoil over this. He was the best dog . 2 weeks prior he started destrying his toys even a Kong to piesces. Indication but didnt see it coming.

Can Canem if you wouldn't mind please e mail me [e-mail] concerning this. I would like to add something and get your opinion

I ment CAVE

Answer 1

All the over breeding and without genetic stability in breeding stock things go awry. Most likely it is something in the brain that snapped. Happens a lot anymore.

Answer 2

If he's from a puppy mill, that's your main reason right there.

Reputabe breeders have a good understanding of how genetics work in a dog. They also only use the dogs that have very good traits thay want passed down to parent. And they only breed dogs they predict will produce good babies. This all involves time, planning, and money (breeding isn't prifitable at all). Why do people go to the trouble of breeding dogs well? Because it's their passion or hobby.

Puppy mills are a business. It's all about profit. At no point does a puppy mill concern itself with homeing the pups to the right homes. Many mills supply pet stores, and some even sell on their site. All pet stores get their dogs from mills mainly. No reputable breeder would sell their animals to a pet store. The people involved in the mills surely love or at least like dogs, but their primary goal is to make some cash. So instead of using top of the line dogs, they slap together any two that are of the a particular breed. This is about quantity. You must have a lot of the product for it to sell well. This is a basic rule of runnign a business. If you have a couple females you breed once a year, this isn't nearly enough to make a living for a week's worth of salary.

Anyway, because the dogs are bred regardless of genetics, the puppies produced can very easily have a TON of health problems. I think inbreeding happens often enough as well, and this causes an increase in heritary illnesses, but it's also the long line of unsuitable parents. I do think you're dog was mentally unstable in some form. This "rage" is not at all normal to any dog. And it is normal for him to have behaved well most of the time. In the cases of this type of aggression, it is ususally the dog's response to stress or frustration. So while one dog barks, whines and chews on your slipper, others lash out on things. You did the right thing by putting him to sleep. I'm very sorry you had to put up with doing that. But it is better off now that he cannot harm anyone or even himself.

Here's one dog owner's experience with her puppy mill pomeranian. She discusses all of the hardships she had to go through, as well as provides some very resourceful info on mills.
http://www.freewebs.com/michelle_and_dinglehopper/index.htm

Answer 3

You did the best thing for your dog and you. Aggression isn't an "all-the-time" situation - I can't tell you how many times people have said that "95% of the time he is the greatest dog." Some dogs act aggressively when they get into stressful situations and they are pushed too far and are set off. Some dogs are more tolerant than others and some dogs are more dominant and aggressive than others.

You did the serious training but training does not always work for serious aggression. This is the biggest Cesar Milan myth - this is my problem with the guy. It doesn't work all the time and some dogs are never 100% reliable even with lots of training.

Put your mind at rest. I'm sorry this happened to you.

Answer 4

I'm sorry to hear about your Dobe. Sounds like a couple things could be wrong. First, his temperament and nerves sound on the weak side. Sounds like a sharp dog. Whenever any breeder (show breeders, backyard breeders, puppy millers) breed for looks over health, temperament, and working ability, they suffer. No exceptions. There certainly could have been something medically wrong with him. Hormone imbalances, bad nerves, even canine epilepsy, and so on.

He might also have gotten wise to your correction and not respected it. Alpha rolls certainly carry a level of danger to them and it's not uncommon to get bitten by an angry dog. If you must do it, muzzling them first is safer. Nothing in Life is Free is a better, less confrontational protocol, but you did what you could. I think you probably did the right thing as even I as a behaviorist would have difficulty trusting a dog that attacked me for a solid minute, but I'm sure he was thankful for the life that you gave him while you had him.

Answer 5

Is the dogs in question A Doberman or a familiar poodle by twist of destiny? ( I easily have heard that the two a form of breeds there's a difficulty) the place their techniques outgrows their cranium, at which factor the cranium could then positioned tension on the techniques, at this factor the dogs could activate human beings. i heard this from a vet approximately dobermans and an animal shelter relating to the familiar poodle. i substitute into raised around many dobermans and basically seen it take place as quickly as. although i substitute into youthful so don't comprehend what he substitute into clinically determined with.

Answer 6

Could be any number of things. Bad breeding, a health issue, behaviour that was allowed to escalate and not get corrected. I suspect that it was bad breeding, but you could have had a necropsy done to see if there was a health issue there. Could have been something like a thyroid problem... Might never know. Never seen a dog act like that, and turn on it's owner...

Answer 7

Many dogs develop personality changes as they age. I like to think that training can control them all but that simply is not true. I have read that because of the extremely small skulls of the dobbie that their brains can become cramped and give them very sever head aches and later in life they can explode. You can imagine what your temperament would be like with a terrible head ache 24/7. I cannot say that the above is true and a lot of necropsy's would have to be done to prove that one but I have heard of many dobermans going skitzoid on their owners, suddently without warning.

Answer 8

Did you neuter him? Often these breeds (the large ones) come into their adult hormones at the age of 2 or so. When this happens, their personality changes. The males tend to become more territorial, more aggressive. That is why a perfectly nice pit bull or doberman or other dogs commonly labeled "aggressive breeds" can be perfectly nice dogs and then suddenly change. Often you'll see pit bulls suddenly become dog aggressive.

The best thing is to neuter them young, before six months so they never get this rush of hormones.

Answer 9

Sounds like he had some kind of mental problem or a nervous breakdown. Did your vet do a necropsy to rule out any kind of physical problems?

Answer 10

Had he even been checked by a vet?? Tick diseases? Any other disease? A number of medical reasons could have been why, and should have been checked for before he was put down, imo.