Hi all,I'm the owner of a 3 year old mutt (a weird mix of Lab, Border Collie, Newfie with a little bit of Staff...at least that's what I assume judging his skull).He moved in with me when he was 3 months old. The first year, we did visit the dog park daily, he did get a lot of socialization and pretty much loved everyone both dogs and humans alike.When he was around 10-12 months old I noticed that things have gotten more stressful as intact males constantly would bark at him from any angle and try to dominate him and he answered with some kind of "come at be bro" kind of attitude until I was telling him to "come" and he just would trot away with me ignoring the other dog.I went to the vet and told that I want to get him fixed. Vet asked if there ever was some kind of biting and I told him no. Vet says that intact males sometimes just don't get along with each other that good and it would be perfectly normal, looking at my dog who was lying in front of my feet waiting patiently for orders and telling me I would have a perfectly fine well behaving young dog. He says that he only is fixing males at that age IF there is a medical or behavioral problem in the first place...and this has to deal with animal rights laws in my country...he told me to wait until he is 18 months old and if things would get worse or if my dog would start to show signs of aggression I should come see him again.1 month later he did get bitten by an intact male in the dog park whose owner had to repeatedly kick his dog because he wouldn't let go my dog, who was trying to get away from him.2 months later, my dog did get mauled real bad by an intact male off leash dog. He had 2 holes in his head, pierced ears and a bloody throat.That's when he started to act fear aggressive and pretty much showed every male dog that would try to approach him to "fuck off" by going stiff, snarling, raised hackles. He never did bite though.If that is not sad enough already, the situation did get worse more and more when not only other dogs would COMPLETELY ignore his body language and other owners would COMPLETELY ignore me when I was telling them to call off their dogs."he just wants to play" (but I said "no"?!) , "he is friendly" (while their dog is standing in front of us or circling around us with raised hackles, half stiff and tail sky high), "they played with each other last week already" (umm...no?!) and the like...you get the picture.Maybe I am not convincing enough. I always try to stay calm to not put any more pressure on my dog but hell, if I tell someone to call of their dog that is charging at my leashed dog, what's so hard to understand? Why do people constantly try to "discuss" with me WHILE letting their dog proceed doing whatever they are doing? I mean, maybe it even would work out but how about you call of your dog and THEN we discuss and not let your dog keep charging at and bumping into mine, when he is on a fucking leash even and your dog is not.The sad thing is that things are almost 100% working out if my dog has time to get familiar with the other dog as in: they both are on the leash and can approach each other slowly and more often than not, some initial careful sniffing turns into him going full play mode rather fast or he just is walking away when having no interest in the other dog...but he stays very calm and is behaving perfectly normal in those situations.Now, with almost every off leash dog ignoring his body language my dog started to take it a step further and would pin them down and using his weight to tell them to fuck off.Again, he never broke any skin, but the main problem is: he goes to pinning down almost right away if they don't get his initial efforts when he's trying to either walk away (what he hardly can do when on the leash) or showing them to not get any closer. ...and he's doing this with dominant females that don't leave him alone now too.But we only have problems with dogs of his size or bigger, no problem with dogs smaller than him whatsoever, no matter how they behave... I already had it multiple times that I had massively barking Terrier mixes bumping into him and he just looks at them, ignores them and keeps walking.... Also, he LOVES puppies, and as said, no problems whatsoever if dogs approach him slowly with their handlers around.I live next to a huge forest/ nature preserve area where strong leash laws are in effect mainly due to the fauna and flora around there, but they are not enforced in any way because it just doesn't make any sense to try and "catch" people letting their dogs run off leash since you often can walk there for hours without meeting a single soul, especially in the early morning or late evening before/ after regulatory authorities would have working hours....but IF you meet people with dogs there, you can be sure that they are off leash and often running up to 100 meters ahead of their owners, roaming the area or that their owners simply don't care to call them off or that they do care, but the dogs just don't listen at all....and if my boy is pinning down a dog that has been charging at him you can be sure that the owners of said dog will blame me for having such an aggressive dog, no matter if they arrive the scene up to one minute after their dog or after I told them repeatedly to not let their dog approach mine.The main problem I have is that people just don't take me for serious (for whatever reason) and that everyone is letting their dogs run off leash.I was considering to take him to a dog school or meeting with a personal trainer, the problem is that I'm unemployed since 2 years due to a medical condition and am living off welfare at the moment and I just don't have the money for this at the moment..There is a dog community nearby that has a huge fenced private dog park and they also meet once a week to train the dogs together but they are somewhat elitist and want to meet up before accepting someone, including visiting people at home and see how they live and I don't think that there would be any chance that they would accept an unemployed single dude with a mutt that has some Staff in the mix.A dog owner I know actually recommended this community to me (my boy totally is in love with her female dog) but told me it's mostly housewives with pure bred dogs that mostly just meet there and drink coffee while they let their dogs play in a "private" dog park and I was just thinking "yeah, most likely to just avoid dogs like mine and people like me".At home, he is 100% chill, mostly sleeping, coming for cuddles, very playful and clownish, always knows when I feel bad and trying to cheer me up. We have no problems with people entering the apartment whatsoever, he always is happy to get to know new people, maybe he'll get some petting from them. Not barking when there's noises in the staircase or any behaviors that would be problematic in any way.There's a lot of elderly people with very little dogs living nearby and they basically ALL love him, since he's very gentle with little dogs always greeting them by putting himself on his back and pawing them, inviting them to play.If I walk him, he's super chill too, mostly sniffing along, never pulling the leash (I walk him on a 5m long leash usually), always waiting, not trying to chase stuff, 100% recall when I call him...actually he is a perfect dog.What do? via /r/dogs http://ift.tt/2ryFKZA
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