Help! Aggressive house pet

lostboy75

My sister has a young collie which is terrorising our house. He displays a lot of dominant behaviour - getting up on furniture, sleeping in her bed, barging out the door before you, etc., but it gets really worrying when he doesn't get his own way. As a pup he tends to want to chew everything and one day he got hold of a box of aspirin. Naturally we didn't want him ingesting them so we took them off him and he launched a frenzied attack on both my father and myself, drawing blood. HELP!!! Is it too late to retrain him? Or are there any trainers in the Galway area? I'm so afraid for my family as this was not the first time this has happened, and he can only get worse.

ahaaha

what age is the pup? if he's six months he's old enough to get the snip and that could calm him down?

lostboy75

Alas no. He had the snip 3 weeks ago, and no obvious change in him. I love dogs but my experience with this one is putting me off ever getting a dog of my own. I actually feel sick thinking about it

Whispered

Never too late to retrain. Collies are very intelligent dogs and if they can get away with something, they know they can! I would suggest getting some professional help with it if you don't think you can handle it yourself. Otherwise, it's back to basics good luck

Ruby Soho

Its only been a few weeks since castration, they usually won't show any significant changes for a few months, until the testosterone levels in the blood decrease.
I think that you and your family need to have a serious talk about this dog, he clearly has some very real and potentially dangerous problems, and everyone in the family must be 100% committed to his retraining / rehabilitation for this to work. It won't work if every member of the family is not serious about this. I would also agree with getting professional help, preferably a trainer who can come out, see the problems first hand, and make a training program to suit.
Has he ever had any basic training? You say he's your sister's dog, how much exercise etc does he get every day? Does she try to train him?
If she' not willing to put in the grind, and yet everyone else is having to reap the consequences, then I would suggest that she rehomes him to someone who has both the time and expertise to sort him out and make a proper pet out of him.

spurscormac

Not sure what part of Galway you are in.
My puppy attended classes with Tara in Galway city - she also does individual sessions with problem dogs.
You could contact her through www.madra.ie