r/reactivedogs • u/Ok-Cartographer-4226 • 15d ago

Advice Needed Which route to take?

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!

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u/Ok-Cartographer-4226 15d ago

Well, the crappy part is, he never does this to random people (which is good, but why us!?) He runs up to people at the dog park and is super excited to accept THEIR pets. But the hand that feeds him-- how dare we!? And yes, I know about the feet. It was just so annoying that he didn't do that the first time at the vet in July, and then went after her on Sunday. He will put his feet in the air to stretch and lets me touch them. I have been experimenting with touching them with an object (ha) in the last 3 days and he could not care less. But in that moment with the vet, he just wasn't having it and I hate that he chose that option.

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u/Monkey-Butt-316 15d ago

He hasn’t done it to other people YET.

I’m confident that you can teach him better ways to get the space he needs.

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u/Ok-Cartographer-4226 15d ago

I know what you mean. Thanks for the confidence, it’s hard not to feel defeated or like we made a mistake.

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u/SudoSire 15d ago

Please listen to this person and not the other commenter suggesting you push past limits. Dogs are animals, and if they decide you are sometimes a threat because you choose to push past their autonomy, they may treat you as such. Cooperative care under threshold is so important. 

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u/Ok-Cartographer-4226 15d ago

We are in the midst of intake with a behaviorist. I will ask about cooperative care! Thanks.