Hi,
My wife and I recently adopted a ex racer greyhound 'Seymour' around 3 months ago. By all accounts he is our perfect dog, he is toilet trained, very responsive to our training and commands and has been an overall joy to see him come out of his shell more and more as time goes by. Unfortunately, during this time Seymour has scared us both with a few incidents of what seems to be aggression, but specifically only with me.
The first time was when he was laying on the couch with me very early on in the adoption, he suddenly reared back up, snapped and drew his lips back and snarled. I firmly told him no and led him off the couch. We immediately looked into causes and figured it must be resource guarding or sleep aggression (as we were unsure if he was asleep at that time). So I took it as it was and we have left him alone since when he is very tired/sleeping and removed his couch privileges at the time, but I was quite rattled from that experience.
Over the course of a few months he would go on to snap, snarl, growl and bark at me in what seems to be a very aggressive manner, very different to when he is trying to talk to us wanting a walk or food. The worst thing is we cant seem to pinpoint why he is being like this. It usually happens after he comes to me for pats and scratches. Most recently he went berserk after only just finishing nibbling my hand (a sign I thought was meant to indicate they are affectionate towards you).
My wife is devastated as we have both grown extremely fond of Seymour, and she is worried that it may escalate into biting and as we have young children that come around we need to know they will be safe around him.
He's never aggressive with my wife (and she is quite clearly his favourite), and 99% of the time he seems to be nothing but loving towards me. We just can't figure out what to do.
Any help or advice would be great. If any more information is required i would be happy to post it!
Thanks!
Ben
