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I'm so scared of losing her--not now, but in the future.
I have an 8 year old black lab mix. She was rescued when she was 2 after being a stray. Jesse's never been very friendly or affectionate with strangers. With us, she isn't a licker, but has always been nothing but friendly with me and my boyfriend.
When she was younger, she always aggressively went after cats, squirrels, noisy cars, barking dogs, and little dogs. She would get into a frenzy and lunge, spin, and pull. Now that she's older, she's not as aggressive when it comes to chasing them, but she still lunges, snaps, and spins briefly.
She does this occassionally with people, too. Jesse looks like a black lab, her tail is always up and wagging, and she looks very friendly. As such, people always try to come up to her and pet her, even if I hold her back and tell people she's not friendly, they keep approaching. The reason why I tell people that she's not friendly is that she has occcasionally lunged and snapped at people who walk towards her, even if they are a dog person who knows to approach slowly, crouch down, put their hand out for her to sniff, she still snaps at them. Not all the time, but I'd say 40%. But it seems that as she gets older, I'd change that number closer to 80%.
Long story short, the other day I had a young woman come up to try to pet Jesse, even though I told her not to because Jesse wasn't always friendly. The woman kept coming and said she loved dogs and they loved her. I tried to hold Jesse back, but she lunged forward and bit the woman's thigh. It wasn't a bad bite, but Jesse tore her jeans and left a scratch on her skin. The woman wasn't upset and just walked away, still baby-talking to my Jesse!
Thank goodness the woman was understanding, but I know that if it was anyone else, Jesse may have been taken away from me! From now on, I'm telling people hands-down that Jesse is NOT friendly at all and do not approach.
But I don't understand--why is she like this and why is it getting worse and worse??
I don't want to lose my baby.
I have an 8 year old black lab mix. She was rescued when she was 2 after being a stray. Jesse's never been very friendly or affectionate with strangers. With us, she isn't a licker, but has always been nothing but friendly with me and my boyfriend.
When she was younger, she always aggressively went after cats, squirrels, noisy cars, barking dogs, and little dogs. She would get into a frenzy and lunge, spin, and pull. Now that she's older, she's not as aggressive when it comes to chasing them, but she still lunges, snaps, and spins briefly.
She does this occassionally with people, too. Jesse looks like a black lab, her tail is always up and wagging, and she looks very friendly. As such, people always try to come up to her and pet her, even if I hold her back and tell people she's not friendly, they keep approaching. The reason why I tell people that she's not friendly is that she has occcasionally lunged and snapped at people who walk towards her, even if they are a dog person who knows to approach slowly, crouch down, put their hand out for her to sniff, she still snaps at them. Not all the time, but I'd say 40%. But it seems that as she gets older, I'd change that number closer to 80%.
Long story short, the other day I had a young woman come up to try to pet Jesse, even though I told her not to because Jesse wasn't always friendly. The woman kept coming and said she loved dogs and they loved her. I tried to hold Jesse back, but she lunged forward and bit the woman's thigh. It wasn't a bad bite, but Jesse tore her jeans and left a scratch on her skin. The woman wasn't upset and just walked away, still baby-talking to my Jesse!
Thank goodness the woman was understanding, but I know that if it was anyone else, Jesse may have been taken away from me! From now on, I'm telling people hands-down that Jesse is NOT friendly at all and do not approach.
But I don't understand--why is she like this and why is it getting worse and worse??
I don't want to lose my baby.