Rehome? Help
I’m hoping to get some advice from people who truly understand Rottweilers, especially rescues with serious reactivity and guarding issues.
I’ve rescued Rottweilers in the past and have experience with the breed, but I have to admit that this dog has been unlike anything I’ve dealt with before.
We’ve had him since February. He was found abandoned during a snowstorm when he was around three years old. When we first got him, things were extremely rocky. He was biting and snapping at us, and at one point he bit my mother-in-law badly enough to draw blood. Despite that, we didn’t want to give up on him. We believed there was a good dog underneath all of the fear and behavior, and we wanted to give him a chance.
The biggest issue is how incredibly reactive he is. We have essentially been unable to take him on normal walks because if he sees a child, bicycle, scooter, or even a person, he completely loses his mind. He is intensely focused on what he perceives as threats and seems to be a guard dog to his core.
We recently got him back from a three-week board-and-train program specifically to work on his walking skills and help him learn to ignore distractions. He has improved somewhat on walks, but we still have a very long way to go.
The behavior inside the house is honestly just as difficult.
We can’t even have natural light coming through the windows because if he can look outside, he immediately goes into guarding mode. If he sees someone, a dog, a car, or really anything that catches his attention outside, he becomes extremely worked up. And if we try to physically pull him away from the window while he’s in that state, he can redirect onto us and try to bite.
We love this dog and absolutely do not want to give up on him. At the same time, we have to be realistic about the safety implications, especially given his bite history and how quickly he escalates.
I am not an inexperienced dog owner, I have been able to successfully train multiple large breed dogs, including rescues. I grew up with 6 to 10 medium to large breed dogs in my house at a time. Even after paying $3600 for training, the trainer even had a difficult time. We feel horrible, but we don’t think we can give him much more time and attention than we already do. He tries to run this house and we have tried everything. He is not great with other dogs our first dog lucky tolerates him because he is a lazy lay around all day Dog. But Bruno plays in incredibly rough.
I feel evil for even thinking I need to rehome him, we love him so much. Thoughts?