Our year old staffie bitch, Cassie, seems to be becoming people aggressive :( Shes always snapped a bit at our male, Teddy, but never at people. Last night she snapped at my husband, all he did was go to stroke her, and today she snapped at our 2 year old son, he only went to stroke her. She snapped at me once before a few months ago when I got hold of her collar to put her lead on as she refused to leave the room. As I say, shes always been a bit aggresive with Teddy, he usually tries to mount/nudge into her or chew her, not in an aggresive way though, he doesnt snarl or show his teeth at her at all, it just seemed as though he was being a bit overplayful. When he does this she snaps at him, showing teeth, and to be honest it looks horrible!! The only time he ever showed his teeth to her is when she appoached one of the kids one time and also when she tried to steal his food, apart from that hes gentle, especially considering he is usually quite dog aggresive when hes on his lead.
Whats worrying me is that shes snapping at us and the kids :( She's not ill as shes just had a check at the vets when she had her booster.

Some illnesses can affect behaviour and not be obvious at a basic vet check over - your first stop should be to explain to the vet what's happening and ask him to check her over very carefully bearing this in mind. IF he finds nothing, then ask him to refer you to a behaviourist for some help - in the mean time be very very careful with all intereactions with her, and especially careful with the children. If she's resisting being moved on anywhere (if you take hold of her collar for example) then it may be a good idea to leave a short lead (cut off the handle loop and tie a big knot in the end to limit the chances of her getting it caught) attached to her collar so you don't have to get in too close to move her........

HTH

May be the poor little thing is fed up with him trying to mount her and may be she is hurting some where/a male can injure female if it keeps mounting, she needs the dog to be kept away from her.

Has she been in season recently ?

I dont think its the mounting thats causing it, it doesnt happen too often and even if he leaves her well alone she will come up and start on him and he hasnt actually managed to 'do' anything to her. She came off her season about a month ago, but the incident when she went for me was a couple months before her season. She really does seem to be hurting Teddy though, she will bite at his eyelids and actually pull on them until he yelps, she wont back off when I tell her no either, so I find myself telling Teddy to leave the room even though its not really him doing anything wrong :(
Will definately take her to the vet for an opinion, luckily I have found a vet nearby with an animal behaviourist at the surgery, so hopefully I can nip this in the bud before it escalates and something horrible happens.

I was going to ask whether she has been in season too and is a bit more irritable or maybe she has an ear infection or the like? Definatley a trip to th vets just to rule anything like this out .
It is unusual for Staffys to be people aggressive .
lesley

Hi i would say the same maybe she does have an infection let the vet vet check her out. As lel says staffords are people and children friendly and have the nick name as the nanny dog. I have 6 staffords and all are 100% with kids and adults all the best gwen

Gwen

6 Staffs..how wonderful! are they a bit of a handful? I love and always have loved Staffs. I have a 5 month old boy, although he can be a little monkey sometimes (or his new nickname is Kevin seeing as he is acting like a teenager at the mo!) but he is just great and such a loving dog. We would like to get another..not yet mind you! wait until he's older and trained. I would like another boy but is that wise?

We are having the same problem with our 10 month old. He recently had to stay at the vets due to him being poorly and when we got him home he arrived back with lots of habits, all bad. He has never chewed anything or snapped at myself nor my partner, since arriving back he's a nightmare. Even when we take him for a walk he will try and bite our feet. We have thought that it may be a way to get extra attention and reassurance that he wont go back to that "place". We are now in the process of getting some expert help with dog training.

Hi Suzanne.
If you have had her fully checked over at the vets and there is no underlying cause for her person aggression then what she is doing is NOT acceptable.
Staffies should NOT be person aggressive and as someone has already said they are known as the "nanny" dog.
I own and love all my staffies but I can honestly say if ANY of them showed ANY signs of aggression towards people, especially children, and there was no underlying cause or provocation then I would be taking them on a one way trip to the vets.
I apologise if this sounds harsh but I would NEVER take the chance with a person aggressive dog. I would NOT want the guilt if anyone were to get hurt that I had known what the dog was like and done nothing. Could you live with the knowledge an innocent child had been scarred for life from a bite from YOUR dog?
If you are 100% you or your child have done nothing to provoke an attack then I really think you should consider what the responsible thing to do is. :-(
Taking the dog to a rescue is not really an option here as the problem could be passed on to someone that would not know or more to the point would not care about the risks with your dog. :-(

Hi everyone, Im booking her in for a check over tomorrow, she snarled at my husband again today when he tried to take a toy off her that she wasnt supposed to have, I dont know where we have gone wrong :(
Teddys never been aggressive to us or our children, not ever, not even when hes been unwell. We've never once done anything differently with Cassie, I just dont understand why shes being like this. If she comes back with the all clear from the vet then I really dont know what Ill do, I love my dogs to bits but I love my kids aswell and wouldnt be able to live with myself if she ever bit them seriously and the last thing the breed needs is more bad press :(

She might very well be having a phantom pregnancy if she's stealing toys

It may be that she is getting very possessive over toys (as you said a toy was taken from her that she wasn't supposed to have) and i agree it may well be some sort of phantom or simply that she is getting possessive over what she sees as resources.

If this is the case, it can very often be sorted out with the help of a good trainer or behaviourist, there are many dogs who have behaved in a similar way who have been "re-trained" if you like, and who are now OK :) but it must be upsetting and you have to be careful until you know for sure what is wrong, esp. as she has snapped in other circumstances. Let us know what the vet says? and make sure he does blood tests etc too :) Good luck

Lindsay

Im not sure that she was hoarding it (if thats the right word) like a pregnant (or phantom) dog would, it was Teddys well chewed nylabone, she was chewing at it but we didnt really want her to as Teddys made it quite spikey and we didnt want her to cut her gums, Teddys used to it so hes fine. She hasnt been hoarding toys into her crate at night at all, shes even lost interest in her kong, lol, maybe some cheese spread will get her interested again :)
When she had the nylabone she wouldnt let Teddy get it back and went for him aswell, as usual, lol, even though its his toy. Could she have a dominance problem and this is her way of telling us she thinks shes top dog??? Im getting worried about Teddy though because of the way she goes at his skin, it does look really painful, I shout NO but all that does is make Teddy think Im shouting at him and its not his fault :(
Im not saying Teddys completely innocent in all of this, but she does seem to go at him with a lot more aggression than he does with her. I really want to sort this out but it seems that no matter what I try Im just not getting through to her, she doesnt come when called, only when she feels like it, treats or no treats, lol. Even if I could get her to respond to me it would be a start, at least that way maybe I could stop her attacking Teddy, but none of the methods Ive been advised to use or used with Teddy are working. I know this sounds like Im only seeing her bad points at the moment, but to tell the truth at this moment in time she is being a NIGHTMARE.