Sudden Aggressive

[RalphyGrey]

Hi,

We have had our greyhound 4 months now and it has been a bit touch and go but has seemed to be improving until this week.

He has suddenly started snarling at my 18 year old son for no reason. Earlier this week our grey was cuddled up to my son abs asking for tummy rubs and overnight he is now snarling at him. 
 

While I was writing this post he just snarled and snapped at me. This has never happened before. 
 

The family are now quite scared of him,

If he continues to act like this we will not be able to keep him. This is the last thing we want but it’s cause us so many problems. 
 

We have no adoption group so this is something we can’t get help with. 
 

Advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Time4ANap]

A vet check is the first priority.  Your dog may be in pain or have some blood related value that is off and causing odd behavior. 

If that's not it, there has to be some triggering event or the dog is testing boundaries.  For now, no furniture privileges and petting only takes place when the dog is standing up and comes to the person for pets as a safety measure. Use the OFF command when he gets on the furniture. If he doesn't know it, you are going to have to teach it.  He may be trying to claim the furniture as his space. 

[HeyRunDog]

12 hours ago, Time4ANap said:

A vet check is the first priority.  Your dog may be in pain or have some blood related value that is off and causing odd behaviour. 

I second that. Hopefully it's resource guarding but get him to the vets sooner rather than later

[Legendaryfrank]

On 10/9/2020 at 12:51 PM, Time4ANap said:

A vet check is the first priority.  Your dog may be in pain or have some blood related value that is off and causing odd behavior. 

If that's not it, there has to be some triggering event or the dog is testing boundaries.  For now, no furniture privileges and petting only takes place when the dog is standing up and comes to the person for pets as a safety measure. Use the OFF command when he gets on the furniture. If he doesn't know it, you are going to have to teach it.  He may be trying to claim the furniture as his space. 

Do dogs randomly start testing boundaries? Not in the same topic as OP but my dog has been a complete angel but it's been three months. Should I anticipate something like this happening?

[Time4ANap]

1 hour ago, Legendaryfrank said:

Do dogs randomly start testing boundaries? Not in the same topic as OP but my dog has been a complete angel but it's been three months. Should I anticipate something like this happening?

All depends on the dog.  We had a boy who was space aggressive so we learned to designate which spaces were his and his only, so no one reached down to pet him when was in those spaces, visiting kids weren't  allowed to lay on the dog bed etc.   I think it's more that they do something we don't want or take a freedom they don't necessarily have than testing a boundary.  Lookup NLIF Training for dogs (Nothing In Life Is Free).  Greyhounds respond pretty well to it and it helps them to know what is expected in their new home environment.