Can our aggressive goldendoodle be saved?
My family has a three-year-old goldendoodle (75% poodle), which we got from a breeder shortly after his birth. He's displayed behavioral challenges almost since we brought him into our home, taking a long time to potty-train and showing a penchant for mischief such that we kept baby gates up to block the living room and upstairs and downstairs – the carpeted areas of the home – well past his second birthday. We keep him in a large dog crate when no one is home.
He will often take things when we are not looking, like pulling napkins from the kitchen table or sneaking his nose in the trash, despite the uncountable number of times we have scolded him for this behavior. He'll maraud for food when he's alone in the kitchen, like recently when he took plastic wrapped bread sitting apparently out of his reach (though, clearly, not quite) and ate the whole thing despite multiple family members pleading for him to drop it. He walked away from us and growled and bared his teeth when we approached, and he eventually went into his crate to finish eating the bread. He almost never drops items without being offered a treat, and sometimes he bites if we reach for him when he's keeping something from us. Indeed, his biting has grown increasingly aggressive toward our family in recent months, as he has savagely growled and bitten us when we've combed through his fur for ticks. He has bitten groomers twice. And he has very strict physical boundaries that seem to arise out of nowhere, especially at night: if he is sleepy or laying, and you approach him, sometimes he will growl and snap and maybe bite you. These bites are not merely signals: Whenever he bites, there is a chance he'll draw blood and he's very likely to leave a bruise or mark.
We have taken him to a vet multiple times in search of answers to these issues, and he has been prescribed anxiety medication, which seemed to help his unceasing mischief but did not curb his worsening aggression toward us. Since he's been weaned off the medicine the last few weeks, some of his past behavioral tendencies have returned, mostly him taking things. The aggression has not ceased.
Our dog spends time in his crate for several hours a day after being taken out for potty and breakfast in the morning, before he is let out and walked in the afternoon or evening, and he stays out for the rest of the night until his bedtime. He has shared the home with a male cat since both were very young. He has not been neutered, on the advice of our vet. He is socially very manageable, and even delightful, outside the home. He is rarely the first to bark at passing or nearby dogs, and he is always friendly to human strangers (if difficult to corral).
Thank you so much for reading. At this point, with us coming to the conclusion he can't remain in the home with behavior like this, mitigating his issues is likely a matter of his life or death. What should we do? Can he possibly stay our, or anyone's, pet?
TL;DR: Our family has decided we cannot continue living with our goldendoodle (75% poodle) with a history of resource guarding, aggression and biting that has accelerated recently. We have consulted our vet and placed him on anxiety meds and it hasn't curbed the aggression. We feel our only option is to rehome him but fear this means euthanasia is likely.