Adopt a Mix

Hello, My wife and I love our dog Shadow dearly, and we're looking to gather as much information as we can to make the most informed decision that is best for us, for the dog, and for our neighbors and their children and pets. This information is to provide full disclosure to anyone with the heart and will to work with difficult dogs. We adopted Shadow (then named Dusty) from Sean Casey Animal Rescue in Brooklyn in November 2014. He's a 75-pound German Shepherd/Hound mix, very cute, with lots of energy, and usually incredibly sweet. He is about 4 years old.At Sean Casey, we took Shadow on a walk and interacted with him and he was great. He was fully house-trained and knew many tricks and was generally adorable and affectionate. When we adopted him, Sean Casey did not have much in the way of documentation to offer us, but we were aware that he'd been returned to the center after biting a vet in Staten Island, and that the vet recommended the dog be returned to Sean Casey. Still, we fell in love with him, and we decided to keep him. This was three years ago. However, he just can't seem to get over his aggression. He sometimes growls at neighborhood kids, and is nearly always snarlingly aggressive with other animals (looking like he wants to kill them). It's possible that much of this behavior would be less problematic coming from a smaller animal who could do less damage, but Shadow is large and muscular. In the past few months, he's bitten my wife two times very severely (leaving broken skin, blood, scars) - once while she was trying to pull him off of a dog at a family member's house during a fight, and the second time while trying to restrain him on his leash from going after a strange dog on the street. He bit me once a few months ago, three times in quick, severe succession (leaving broken skin and blood) when I tried to bring him to the tub for a bath, and he bit my father-in-law while trying to get at some of his food. He's snapped at my wife and I before this too, occasionally seriously, several times when we've had to treat a paw injury or give him basic skin or ear infection medicine. He'll typically grown menacingly before biting, but sometimes there's no warning at all. In addition to the dogfight mentioned above, he also bit another neighborhood dog on a walk once not long after we got him, for no reason. He's also snapped at a kennel worker at the place where we board him when we travel, and now he has to be kept separate from dogs in his own "suite" when at that kennel. We worked a few times with a trainer from a reputable place in Manhattan, mostly to help with this, and with his constant tugging/pulling/yanking on the leash as he lunges for other dogs, cats, squirrels, etc., but aside from giving my wife and I some coping strategies, it hasn't proved very helpful in changing the behavior. We have to limit our play with him because he is so big and gets so aggressive - biting and scratching, etc. He's also got a lot of energy and is extremely fast. We can't take him to dog parks because he can't be trusted around other dogs. We're worried that if he ever gets off his leash he will attack another animal or person, especially if that person is trying to help him. Frankly we don't feel like we can keep Shadow any longer, and we are investigating no-kill shelters in the hopes that either the shelters themselves, or a compassionate new owner, will have the resources of money, time, and patience for the extensive behavioral training Shadow seems to need. We would never release him to any shelter without informing them about all of his problems, however. We don't want any other animals, adults, or children hurt. At this point, both my wife and I are often somewhat on edge/fearful around Shadow. Just the other day, he lunged after a dog across the street so fast that my wife fell hard on the sidewalk and got hurt. As much as it pains us to suggest it, we're also considering if the most compassionate option might be to have him put down.

**** Breed: German Shepherd/Hound Mix
**** Contact: Zach Fehst - [email protected]
**** Address: Brooklyn, NY, 11215