Thunderbolt, age 2, Male, 50lbs. He is healthy. We are rehoming him because of his people and dog reactivity, with the potential to be aggressive. He was adopted from a shelter and came to us reactive. He has shown improvement with training, but we feel he would do better in a home without children.
I want to start with the good things: Aside from his reactivity, he has been a great dog. He is very affectionate and loves to be pet, he will even nudge you to get more pets. He’s a beautiful dog and petite for a shepherd at 50lbs. He loves to play, especially tug. He is friendly with large and small dogs he knows and has been properly introduced to (pack walk) and will play with them. He also respects other dogs' space and requests to be left alone. He LOVES walks, whoever has the leash is his favorite person. He pulls on a flat collar but walks well on a Herm Sprenger prong. He will chill around the house and on the couch with you. He loves to be with you and will follow you around. He is extremely handsome and smart and takes treats gently. He is housebroken, crate trained (good for short or long periods in a crate), muzzle trained, knows basic commands: sit, down, stay, place (to your spot), and kennel up. He waits for a release word (free) for his food. He had mild separation anxiety when we got him but we successfully have trained him out of it. He is working on waiting at doors with a release word. He has a low prey drive. He is great with both people and kids he knows (with proper and slow introductions) but I don’t recommend a home with children because of his reactivity and resource guarding.
His main negative is his reactivity/aggression:
- He is a one family only dog with extreme stranger danger, extremely people and dog reactive with the potential to be aggressive.
- He is people and dog reactive on walks. And will bark and lunge at dogs or people passing by or approaching. He does better when a trigger is approaching to move him to a short leash in a heel position on the opposite side of the trigger and with some distance added (like walking in the bike lane).
- He has two bites on his record, both were weird circumstances, one left no mark and the other one drew blood and it was an accident: I grabbed his collar when he was reacting to a dog behind a fence and he turned and bit me. He can bite when he is worked up.
- He has reactivity at the front window and fences when he sees a dog or person.
- We never open the front door when he is out, we will kennel him first.
- He is great with people he knows, but any new person he will bark and lunge at with the potential for biting.
- Because he is not friendly to strangers we kennel him whenever we have guests.
- His reactivity/aggression is a potential liability.
Aside from reactivity he also:
- Has resource guarding and will growl and snap if you try to retrieve items from him. He is improving at this, we are working on drop it. I don’t have the time or energy to train for high value items like food so we don’t take those things from him because he will growl, snap, and try to bite.
- Counter surfs.
- Retrieves items from around the house and chews them, a nuisance and also hazardous to himself if he ingests sharp objects.
- To be seen at a vet he needs Trazidone and a muzzle.
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