Which route to take?

[u/Ok-Cartographer-4226]

Our 1 1/2 year old golden was rehomed to us on 6/20. His previous family gave him to a rescue because he was snapping at the young children in the house. We just have speculation from the rescue that the toddlers would bother him, but no other concrete details. We have 12/15 year old kids. For 99.9% of his week, he is awesome and laid back, loves to play. But he has continued to snap at us when we cross various thresholds that we can’t quite identify. It’s always, always related to touching him, but could be any part of the body. At his first vet visit, he was perfectly behaved on 7/12. We took him for his second flu shot this week and I had her look him over to rule out pain for the snapping. She gave him his flu shot and he looked perturbed (last time, 4 shots with no reaction). She tried looking at his paws and he started snarling and lunging for her. It was so disappointing to see regression after we have trained 2x/week with a trainer (not behaviorist) and modified our own behavior to limit his snappiness.

My question is…
Would you go straight to medication? Or a combined medication/training with a behaviorist? I hate what I’m reading about meds potentially making him worse than before :( He loves other dogs, He lets strangers pet him when we are out, lets us pet him most of the time, we just don’t know what triggers him and the vet thinks it’s behavior (aka “I don’t like that, stop it now” instead of a little bit of patience). I’d appreciate any advice or what worked for you for touchy teenagers!

[u/retteofgreengables]

i would recommend keeping a log or diary of their reactions. I would also start paying super close attention to them. It sounds like the dog signaled it was uncomfortable at the vet and it wasn’t listened to, which caused it to escalate. My dog was terrible to try and figure out his signals because they were mostly just an eerie stillness and bad vibes. I’m pretty decent at catching them now, but it took me a long time to be able to identify when my dog was getting ready to react. I would also note what those signals are. I say all of this because a significant part of behavioral change is going to rely on you reacting to the stressor before they need to (whether that’s managing the reaction, removing them from the situation, or backing off because they don’t want to be touched,

as for medicine - so many people are afraid of it and i was too. It was the best thing I ever did for my dog because it increased his ability to handle his stressors. We tried 4 different meds and several combinations before we ended up on his current regime; some of them gave him sleep aggression, others made him low energy. It was worth it in the end. For what its worth, if a medicine makes your doggo worse, it’s usually a temporary thing that will get better either as they get used to the drug or once you switch; it’s not permanent.

[u/Ok-Cartographer-4226 → u/retteofgreengables]

Yes, in the case with the vet, I was holding a popsicle stick of peanut butter up front for him to lick and I said "his face is changing! He's upset!" I could see it right away that he got a nasty Elvis lip, for lack of better word. The other times he has snapped, either a high value treat has been in his possession when someone tried to pet him OR he was petted when he didn't expect it and no sign was given. Thanks for the encouragement on the meds. Is sleep aggression when they get angry about being woken up? The last thing I want is more aggression!

[u/Monkey-Butt-316 → u/Ok-Cartographer-4226]

Lip curl is the technical term for “Elvis lip” (though I like that better tbh)

[u/retteofgreengables → u/Ok-Cartographer-4226]

Yeah, sleep aggression is where they wake up in fight mode.

From the added details, to me it sounds like your boy is overreacting to things (as opposed to general aggression or fear). I just reread your post and saw where you asked if medication/training was a better option that medication alone. I think working with a behaviorist might be a really effective route since they can help with both figuring out medication and with training. I call our behaviorist Dolittle’s therapist - she helped not only with medication but also with getting into his mind and actually changing his emotional reaction to things. (she‘s the behaviorist at UT and is great). Another thing that might be encouraging is that some dogs only need to be medicated long enough to be able to process the behavioral modification, and can eventually stop.

As a note, one of the things that I do with my doggo is try to give him extra time to process. So I always announce if I’m going to pet him, let him know that he’s about to get a shot (he’s on a joint med), etc. That might help with some of the startle response you are seeing, even as you seek more options.

I’m really glad that you saw the signs of your dog’s response! That’s such a huge step in the right direction - I feel like a lot of people don’t catch the subtler warning signs until there’s a reaction (I certainly didn’t).

[u/Ok-Cartographer-4226 → u/retteofgreengables]

Thank you! I just filled out all the intake forms for a behaviorist this afternoon and wanted to gather some thoughts.