Update: we have decided to rehome this dog, I am very sad about this decision, but we had a near-bite with my 5 year old this morning. It maybe shouldn’t have had to come to that, and I’ll have to deal with my own mindset on that, but this is a sad day for me. I was promised this dog was family friendly but quickly found out he is not.

Now to find a new, safe and prepared home for him.

I posted about a month ago about mufasa

here

We had a good plan, we were doing walks consistently, making strides, he got to the point of being able to pet mufasa after walks, and taking the harness off himself. then we got in for a last minute neuter appointment (with a place normally has a 2 month wait list), and I took it, because we were also dealing with marking behaviors and I wanted to get rid of those, then we stopped the walks while he was healing.

Now he is healed, but the walks haven’t resumed, (despite my telling him over the weekend to start them again this week) and aggression has gotten worse again. Me and the kids take the dog outside during the day and get out lots of energy, so he is still getting exercise, but I know that the walks are specifically for training and bonding between the two of them. Well, Mufasa bit my boyfriend on Sunday night, and now i don’t think that boyfriend is willing to actually work with him anymore. It was a high stress situation, the baby was crying, boyfriend was dealing with the baby, dog bit enough to make one puncture wound. It was clearly a situation where the dog thought he was protecting the baby (or stopping the crying at least). But now, no matter how much I tell him to be patient, I have the dog on a leash attached to me, ect, boyfriend is basically tossing him a treat when he gets home and the dog growls and barks at him if he tries to interact beyond that, so he just goes away.

We had a long talk last night and basically he said that the dog has become a source of stress and he doesn’t need another source of stress, that dogs should be stress relievers not stress sources, and he knew that I wanted a happy ending but he basically doesn’t have the energy.

How do I convince him that there is a light at the end of the tunnel? That consistency will help and they can have a positive relationship?

Edit to add: we have an appointment on Sunday with a trainer(was supposed to be October 4th but someone in the house had a fever and cough that day, and we were waiting on Covid test results)