One of the students in my class this morning came to us with an issue she's been having with her dog.
The dog is a rescue from a hoarding situation where she lived with 50+ other dogs. She is generally pretty non-reactive and chill around most dogs. Sort of Welsh Springer Spaniel looking.
What has happened, on 3 occasions now, is that she will grab a hold of another dog's ear and not let go. There's no growling, no "meeting," and no chewing. She just grabs and holds. This has happened twice on leash - one the other dog's leash was dropped and it ran up to her, the second was just passing by. The third time was at an off-leash park, where she was reportedly playing fine with the group of dogs, but a new one came in and she latched to him.
While she doesn't break or mark the skin of the other dogs, they do scream and whine when this happens - which has now resulted in another person punching this dog.
From what I gather, nothing phases the dog while she's holding the ear - tail/leg pulling etc. And they've had to pry her mouth open to get her off the other dog.
I told the owners I would try to look into things, as I don't have a heck of a lot of insight on this. She was fine with Cobain today, I saw no indications of any sort of aggression or anything off with her then.
Anyone have any ideas???
The dog is a rescue from a hoarding situation where she lived with 50+ other dogs. She is generally pretty non-reactive and chill around most dogs. Sort of Welsh Springer Spaniel looking.
What has happened, on 3 occasions now, is that she will grab a hold of another dog's ear and not let go. There's no growling, no "meeting," and no chewing. She just grabs and holds. This has happened twice on leash - one the other dog's leash was dropped and it ran up to her, the second was just passing by. The third time was at an off-leash park, where she was reportedly playing fine with the group of dogs, but a new one came in and she latched to him.
While she doesn't break or mark the skin of the other dogs, they do scream and whine when this happens - which has now resulted in another person punching this dog.
From what I gather, nothing phases the dog while she's holding the ear - tail/leg pulling etc. And they've had to pry her mouth open to get her off the other dog.
I told the owners I would try to look into things, as I don't have a heck of a lot of insight on this. She was fine with Cobain today, I saw no indications of any sort of aggression or anything off with her then.
Anyone have any ideas???