HELP - 2.5 yr old agressive adopted bull terrier
Mel1995
Ontario
Hello, I am in quite the desperate situation and I am in need of some guidance.
My boyfriend and I adopted a 2.5 year old beautiful Bull terrier that has slowly proved to us that has a biting/anxiety problem.
Rhino is white with a brindle eye patch and lots of brindle spots on his tummy. He is an intact male, up to date on his shots, and is the sweetest and most loving dog that just craves cuddles and attention. He is very well trained with commands (Sit, lie down, shake each paw, up, stay/wait) and with his crate. However, as you may know with BT’s, he has selective hearing… listens only when he wants to listen or if food is involved.
Rhino lived 2 years of his life with his original owner just north of Toronto. He had a 100lb American Pitbull brother that he grew up with. Unfortunately that owner passed away from health issues and the niece sold him on his behalf. When the niece took over him, he was kept in an outside kennel with a dog house for 5-6 weeks. We were told this was because she had several dogs of her own, and Rhino was causing issues. After living in those conditions for just over a month, we finally came into the picture. We were told that Rhino had been well socialized with humans and dogs alike, and that they never once had an issue with him. He was walked everyday and taken to local dog parks and had even been around kids/family at their home.
After having Rhino for 4 months now, it is clear that the previous owner left out some details, or was un-aware of them. That being said, Rhino is well socialized and does get along with anyone or any dog that comes to our house. He may jump up and do small nips on new people but nothing out of the ordinary. Rhino seems to be great when playing 1-on-1 with other dogs, other than some occasional mounting/humping he is very well behaved. However we have seen him get aggressive when another BT was being aggressive as they were playing and wouldn’t leave him alone.
Now for some of the bad: Rhino has been with us since May 15th. In these past 4 months my boyfriend and I have had 7-8 biting incidents with him. The worst recent incident was July 14th and is the reason we are here looking for a re-homing situation. He my boyfriends foot so badly that he required stitches and was on crutches for 6 weeks. In this particular incident, they were cuddling on the bed as we’ve done many times before… he was lying with him and he was happy as ever as he was petting him etc… Then after a little while he went back on his phone and he moved his foot to re-adjust positions on the bed and then suddenly he latched onto his foot and wouldn’t let go… Totally unprovoked and without any sort of warning. We now understand we should not have had him in our bed with us, even though he had been fine many times before. The other biting incidents we understood a little more. One incident was that I spilled some food while cooking, which Rhino proceeded to lick up off the floor. As I was cleaning it up he bit my boyfriends hand. Nothing too serious and we then understood that a boundary needed to be set with food. Another incident was when he was siting on the couch with my girlfriend and she was hugging him and as I was hugging him my boyfriend went in to pet him. Without warning he bit my boyfriends hand pretty bad. We understood that a boundary needed to be set with him being hugged/pet at the same time. Another incident was when he was sitting on the couch with me.. He had fallen asleep and just woke up. I went in to pet him and he bit me, this one wasn’t bad at all BUT we understood that a boundary needed to be set with him and his sleep. Another incident was when he was feeling sick from eating something, i took him outside for a bathroom break and he was eating grass and as i tried to stop him from eating grass he bit my hand. So we understood a boundary needed to be set when he is feeling sick and not himself. A close-call that i had was when she tried clipping his nails… We got two nails trimmed before he started becoming very aggressive to the point we couldn’t control him. (We trimmed the nails properly and didn’t hurt him) So he had to get him sedated at the vet so they could trim his nails. The only behaviour problems we saw were mainly around his sleep/food. We used to keep his bed in our bedroom at the foot of our bed, but any sudden movement or noise would put him in an aggressive state (only at night for some reason) So we moved his bed downstairs. But the unprovoked attack is where we decided to draw the line.
Just yesterday Rhino bit my boyfriends finger because he was petting him? We cant seem to attach any reasoning behind this bite...which scares us. We no longer have guests over, it causes to much anxiety for both us and the guests. We are very social people and this situation causes us to isolate him and ourselves.
We have done everything we can as owners. We did a lot of research on the bread to ensure we do proper training and care. We do daily vigorous exercise/lots of play time, daily structured routine, daily positive reinforcement, daily training, mental simulation, and we all around spoiled this dog. My boyfriend and I both have always had dogs growing up and we knew it was going to be a handful with taking on this dog, but he is now more than we can handle. We love Rhino so much, we have an amazing routine with him and he's such a good boy until he does something like this out of nowhere. We aren’t in the position to afford behavioural training and at this point we aren’t cut out to handle this aggressive behavior. We have inquired about training and both trainers couldn't guarantee that the nighttime agression and anxiety could be corrected...we dont want to have to cage and mussle our dog every night, he can be a jerk when it comes to both.
It is so heartbreaking to have to loose this dog that we've grown to love and also put thousands of dollars into... But we have to look out for our best interests here. This has been such an exhausting moral dilemma.
We have reached out to the lady who sold him to us, she ghosted us. We reached out to the Bull terrier society of Canada and we posted Rhino into the group for re-homing, we had only ONE person set up...she ghosted us aswell. We reached out to the S.O.S group for bull terriers in Quebec and she ghosted us too! and told us human aggression is too much for them to take on. We do NOT want to have to get to the point where we have to be put in the position to euthanize this beautiful 3 year old bull terrier....but we feel so lost and so hopeless at this point. It is clear rhino has some trust issues and anxiety, he is on anxiety medication currently but it doesnt seem to help all that much it is only a mild sedative...we can consider better medication but then again the rest are longterm. We fear that the next home that may take him on will only deal with our situation but worse given moving rhino again will definitely cause more anxiety and trust issues in him.
Safe to say we are in one hell of a situation. It has been the worst thing to happen in our lives and we are constantly on edge, frustrated, lost and emotional.
If Anyone has any advise on this I am all ears at this point...I know this is a lot and theres not much advise or things to help us...we really have tried almost everything other than training that we simply cannot afford, we are left with trust issues, PTSD and trauma from this but I just wonder that maybe just maybe theres a place that we missed that might take rhino... idk anymore.
Thanks for reading our story.
My boyfriend and I adopted a 2.5 year old beautiful Bull terrier that has slowly proved to us that has a biting/anxiety problem.
Rhino is white with a brindle eye patch and lots of brindle spots on his tummy. He is an intact male, up to date on his shots, and is the sweetest and most loving dog that just craves cuddles and attention. He is very well trained with commands (Sit, lie down, shake each paw, up, stay/wait) and with his crate. However, as you may know with BT’s, he has selective hearing… listens only when he wants to listen or if food is involved.
Rhino lived 2 years of his life with his original owner just north of Toronto. He had a 100lb American Pitbull brother that he grew up with. Unfortunately that owner passed away from health issues and the niece sold him on his behalf. When the niece took over him, he was kept in an outside kennel with a dog house for 5-6 weeks. We were told this was because she had several dogs of her own, and Rhino was causing issues. After living in those conditions for just over a month, we finally came into the picture. We were told that Rhino had been well socialized with humans and dogs alike, and that they never once had an issue with him. He was walked everyday and taken to local dog parks and had even been around kids/family at their home.
After having Rhino for 4 months now, it is clear that the previous owner left out some details, or was un-aware of them. That being said, Rhino is well socialized and does get along with anyone or any dog that comes to our house. He may jump up and do small nips on new people but nothing out of the ordinary. Rhino seems to be great when playing 1-on-1 with other dogs, other than some occasional mounting/humping he is very well behaved. However we have seen him get aggressive when another BT was being aggressive as they were playing and wouldn’t leave him alone.
Now for some of the bad: Rhino has been with us since May 15th. In these past 4 months my boyfriend and I have had 7-8 biting incidents with him. The worst recent incident was July 14th and is the reason we are here looking for a re-homing situation. He my boyfriends foot so badly that he required stitches and was on crutches for 6 weeks. In this particular incident, they were cuddling on the bed as we’ve done many times before… he was lying with him and he was happy as ever as he was petting him etc… Then after a little while he went back on his phone and he moved his foot to re-adjust positions on the bed and then suddenly he latched onto his foot and wouldn’t let go… Totally unprovoked and without any sort of warning. We now understand we should not have had him in our bed with us, even though he had been fine many times before. The other biting incidents we understood a little more. One incident was that I spilled some food while cooking, which Rhino proceeded to lick up off the floor. As I was cleaning it up he bit my boyfriends hand. Nothing too serious and we then understood that a boundary needed to be set with food. Another incident was when he was siting on the couch with my girlfriend and she was hugging him and as I was hugging him my boyfriend went in to pet him. Without warning he bit my boyfriends hand pretty bad. We understood that a boundary needed to be set with him being hugged/pet at the same time. Another incident was when he was sitting on the couch with me.. He had fallen asleep and just woke up. I went in to pet him and he bit me, this one wasn’t bad at all BUT we understood that a boundary needed to be set with him and his sleep. Another incident was when he was feeling sick from eating something, i took him outside for a bathroom break and he was eating grass and as i tried to stop him from eating grass he bit my hand. So we understood a boundary needed to be set when he is feeling sick and not himself. A close-call that i had was when she tried clipping his nails… We got two nails trimmed before he started becoming very aggressive to the point we couldn’t control him. (We trimmed the nails properly and didn’t hurt him) So he had to get him sedated at the vet so they could trim his nails. The only behaviour problems we saw were mainly around his sleep/food. We used to keep his bed in our bedroom at the foot of our bed, but any sudden movement or noise would put him in an aggressive state (only at night for some reason) So we moved his bed downstairs. But the unprovoked attack is where we decided to draw the line.
Just yesterday Rhino bit my boyfriends finger because he was petting him? We cant seem to attach any reasoning behind this bite...which scares us. We no longer have guests over, it causes to much anxiety for both us and the guests. We are very social people and this situation causes us to isolate him and ourselves.
We have done everything we can as owners. We did a lot of research on the bread to ensure we do proper training and care. We do daily vigorous exercise/lots of play time, daily structured routine, daily positive reinforcement, daily training, mental simulation, and we all around spoiled this dog. My boyfriend and I both have always had dogs growing up and we knew it was going to be a handful with taking on this dog, but he is now more than we can handle. We love Rhino so much, we have an amazing routine with him and he's such a good boy until he does something like this out of nowhere. We aren’t in the position to afford behavioural training and at this point we aren’t cut out to handle this aggressive behavior. We have inquired about training and both trainers couldn't guarantee that the nighttime agression and anxiety could be corrected...we dont want to have to cage and mussle our dog every night, he can be a jerk when it comes to both.
It is so heartbreaking to have to loose this dog that we've grown to love and also put thousands of dollars into... But we have to look out for our best interests here. This has been such an exhausting moral dilemma.
We have reached out to the lady who sold him to us, she ghosted us. We reached out to the Bull terrier society of Canada and we posted Rhino into the group for re-homing, we had only ONE person set up...she ghosted us aswell. We reached out to the S.O.S group for bull terriers in Quebec and she ghosted us too! and told us human aggression is too much for them to take on. We do NOT want to have to get to the point where we have to be put in the position to euthanize this beautiful 3 year old bull terrier....but we feel so lost and so hopeless at this point. It is clear rhino has some trust issues and anxiety, he is on anxiety medication currently but it doesnt seem to help all that much it is only a mild sedative...we can consider better medication but then again the rest are longterm. We fear that the next home that may take him on will only deal with our situation but worse given moving rhino again will definitely cause more anxiety and trust issues in him.
Safe to say we are in one hell of a situation. It has been the worst thing to happen in our lives and we are constantly on edge, frustrated, lost and emotional.
If Anyone has any advise on this I am all ears at this point...I know this is a lot and theres not much advise or things to help us...we really have tried almost everything other than training that we simply cannot afford, we are left with trust issues, PTSD and trauma from this but I just wonder that maybe just maybe theres a place that we missed that might take rhino... idk anymore.
Thanks for reading our story.
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4128 x 1908 - 2M
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4128 x 1908 - 2M
Comments
Forgot to add this
"It's not just a Dog, it's a Bull Terrier!"
www.bulliesofnc.com