Gun Dog Forum

I have a 2.5 year old intact male lab. Great dog and is a joy to hunt with.
Over the last 6 mo there have been a few instances of him showing aggression towards people not in our household. Not strangers as in brother in law, mother in law and my mother. All I can “explain” away if I wanted to but also don’t want to be complacent and have a problem get worse.
I believe them all to be dominance related and all but one happened while I was not present. Like I said never shown an ounce of aggression towards myself, wife or kids.
Two questions and yes I have searched
Would neutering help? Have other found any success with it?
And for the anti neuter it’s a training issue. What training can I do? Obviously the people he hasn’t done this too don’t want to help for fear of getting bit. And he really doesn’t do it when I’m around where I could correct him.
Looking for any and all ideas as I want to correct it I. It’s early stages to keep it from getting to be an issue that I can’t control.
This is my first dog so I’m new to this.


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Hopefully others chime in with more experience, but I had similar issues with my male (also intact). If you have a “leave it” command, you can use that, but enforce it. If that doesn’t work, I just had to grab mine by the neck and give him a shake, let him know that’s not acceptable and to cut it out. Dogs are different, some tougher/softer than others, so you may have to come down harder/softer. It’s uncomfortable to do it front of guests, but it’s not worth someone getting bit.

That was something I thought of. I’m going to get tougher on him at any signs of aggression. Barking at stranger or anything at all. Seems that is all he does around me.


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Just keep in mind that you can't cure aggression with aggression. Many times it makes it worse. I think what the dog is doing, from the description, is protecting his home and family. Easy way to check that is to take him in public, around a Mall or even into a Cabelas and see how he reacts. If it's home aggression, he may actually be subservient around other people outside the home. I encouraged friends to come up and give the dog a treat with me monitoring the situation carefully. I have never really discouraged that behavior, I've simple crated the dog when company was there.

This ^^^