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Old April 5th, 2011, 09:30 AM
Brad1976 Brad1976 is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 4
Hi Kateryna,

There is definitely hope for your dog. I had a Golden Retreiver named Finnegan with similar issues except his trick was to steal the expensive remote or your brand new shoes and lunge at you if you went to get if off of him. He would even bite you if you were petting him. I actually had Barkbusters come to my home and the trainer was very helpful. It took almost 6months for us to feel at ease again around him but he is now a very well behaved dog. We understand that he is never going to be a party dog around other dogs and people as he really is not interested in their attention, but that was ok with us.

I read some other posts and see that Barkbusters does not get a lot of love on this forum. My wife and I had a really good experience with them and we never did anything physical to Finnegan. Not sure why people seem to think what we learnt from them will make the dog worse. The trainer Krystal must have come to see us over a dozen times to help us through this. Taking him to any sort of group class would have been a nightmare so in home was really the only option.

From everything you described in your post you will have a tough road ahead as you are going to have to do what others have already suggested and stop treating your dog like a person and more like a dog. Everyone in your family is also going to have to be very very consistent. We realized with our own guy that he was really very stressed all the time and his quality of life was not great. Having to worry about us, stangers and other dogs was too much for Finnegan.

Anyway there is a light at the end of the tunnel if you want to put in the effort. In the end it will be worth it. We really enjoy Finnegan now and less then a year ago we were contemplating giving him up.

Good Luck

Brad
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