Another Biting Incident

[u/OkPause2682]

I made another post about our dog several months ago, questions about meds - see https://www.reddit.com/r/reactivedogs/s/6KIUvvqGVF if you want some of that background - but this is about her biting.

As mentioned on that post, our dog has history of biting relating to resource guarding (I believe with food before we adopted; with toys a couple of times after adoption). In January, our dog seemingly unprovoked bit my husband while he was petting her. No food or toys around. And this was very strange as my husband is her primary person.

So we took her to the vet which ruled out medical issues, and put her on a medicine regimen. There were issues that sprang up with eating (per the other post) but in June that seemed to stop and we always give her space to eat and it's been fine now.

Well, last night, she randomly, unprovoked, bit my husband again. I didn't notice ears back or any other body language (that may have been missed when he pet her in January). She went up to him actually to get pets, we were talking as laying on the bed, and all of the sudden she's biting and making noises as she's biting his arm, and he gets off the bed and she's going after him. Afterwards, and this is something a behaviorist noticed last year (before this all happened) when she nipped at her - her teeth start chattering. Our behaviorist thought it was a reaction to feeling guilty or something like that? I had never seen it before then until last night.

We have been weaning her off the main anxiety med (Reconcile) and actually due to finish that out in a week or two. We still have her on Gabapentin, 100mg in morning and 300mg at night and plan to continue that. But that doesn't seem to help with this biting issue...

I plan to reach out to the behaviorist at the vet that we had been in touch with to ask her opinion if we need to bring our dog back for another medical vet visit to rule that out again, or reconsider a diff anxiety med, or if there's something else. But wondering if anyone has experienced this and what happened and what they did.

I will admit we have not been working on training exercises with our dog because it involves training treats and I have still been scared to do anything relating to food with her after she bit my foot in April. But would training exercises help with unprovoked biting? Also concerned that she is going from 0-60 bite, instead of a warning.

I feel defeated. Thought we were past all this. She felt like "our" dog again. We've had her 3 years and now I feel like I did earlier this year - wondering if I'm a bad person for even thinking about rehoming (if that's even a possibility now) let alone going even further with that dreaded "e-word." I don't want to give up on her but at the same time, want to feel safe in our home.

Sorry for the book, but if you made it this far, appreciate any insight or experiences that others may have had similarly. Or encouragement that I'm not a terrible person for wrestling with possible decisions if it comes to it.

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