Attention Doberman Pro's!

[pixelnista]

Attention Doberman Pros!?
Hi, we have a 3 year old neutered male Doberman Pincher. A beautiful dog, loving, proud and just a joy. We also have 3 year old spayed female Chihuahua and they are getting along fine. How ever he has pined her on her back on several occasions over the years but has never hurt her. Now, to the part where things are not going well. Our Dobe has a good life, has been socialized and taken care of very except exercise was not enough but this is currently changing he is getting a run twice a day min 30min each....now. to the bad stuff our Dobe bit my husband and drew blood on his hand 2 days a go. He has NEVER bitten any person or animal ever he did snarl and show teeth at us on occasion such as petting when he sleeps, or touching his feet or chest. My husband was leaning over him (big mistake) and checked on his feet because he was licking them and then he felt his chest to check his heart beat while the Dobe was on his bed. This made me nervous because his bed is sort of in a corner and my husband was towering over him meaning no harm just checking on him and then all h*ll broke loose. The Dobe jumped up and bit my husband to the point where it punctured the skin and blood was coming out. It took the Dobe a while to snap out of it and my husband told him to back off and leave the room which he did but now my husband is afraid of him which I can understand after he was bitten and he is in shock that this happened he loves this dog more then anything. The bite was bad but he didn't go to the hospital because he could fix it at home. Anybody out there who has worked with a Doberman or owns Doberman's? and got bitten before if so how did you deal with it and did you ever trust him again? Please keep in mind we are responsible owners, but we have made some mistakes by letting him get away with some things such as demanding pets from us and begging for food from the table and we gave in. We are re-training by making clear who the pack leaders are, with exercise, limitation and affections and positive reinforcement know he made a big mistake and it really is our fault not the dogs, but the problem is my husband he loves him but his is now thinking negative about him now. Please do not answer to my questions if you never owned a Doberman and don't understand the breed. I just want to know from people that understand the breed and love the breed and what they personally did to trust the dog again.
We are currently searching for a professional dog behaviorist to help us out as well as getting him a medical check up. Sorry for the long message but I am not sleeping well over this and I want to keep my family happy and safe.

Thank You,
Julia

[Rajas Mom]

I'm sorry to hear about your situation.  I can feel you, as we've been through a few similar situations with Bo, our lab, (although luckily no blood ever drawn!).  A combination of bad breeding (and impulsively on our parts) and not always setting the best of limits with him despite reading all of those books. 

I'm curious about the crabbiness while sleeping.  Does anyone else every experience this?  We had object hoarding creep slowly up on us - and managed to kick it in the butt, but have never managed to figure out his being aggressive while sleeping.  I have a friend who does dog training (but lives out of state) and we've talked about it at length - she can't figure it out either.

Sleeping period isn't a problem.  As in, daytime napping, etc. However, around 11pm or after he appears to become disoriented when woken up and will snarl at us occasionally (Raja quickly jumps in to defend).  Embarrassingly enough, I've never really come up with a solution to this problem other than putting him in his room at 10:30pm.  Haven't had a problem in months, but... 

I've never heard of anyone else experiencing this, so my curiosity is going.

[London_Pyr_Lover]

I heard someone else suggest this for deaf dogs, maybe it will work in both your situations.  Whenever you catch your dog napping, wake him up with his favorite treat in hand, if he wakes up nicely - reward him.  Wake him up gently of course so as to not startle him, but get him used to the idea that whenever mom or dad wakes him up good things happen. 

Just a thought.  Good luck though. 

[Rajas Mom]

Thanks, I will have to give it a try!  As I said, I'm not even sure if it's much of an issue anymore, but it was freaky when it did happen. 

Thank goodness for boss dog Raja!  Bo can't even look at our food without her sitting on him.  She is the protector (and sitter on-er) of all things in our household.  She even guards the fridge from the other dogs if she smells something yummy (in a good way, she never tries to dig her nose in there or anything).

[marypyrs]

Ohhhhh ~ ~ ~ I have to butt in here for just a little bit. I LOVE the image of Raja as "the sitter on-er"! What a Sweetie Pie! 
(Now I'll butt back out & just read.)

[pixelnista]

Thank You everybody for the helpful tips! We are getting him a full medical check up first and once the check up and blood tests are completed we are getting a Doctor she is a  specialist in Behavior to our house he is less stressed at home. She said that this type of situation is common in her practice and they deal with this all the time.

[navarre1316]

That's great!!  Let us know how it goes.