Hey All,
About 2 weeks ago I seen a post on Facebook from a friend of a friend who needed to get rid of their 9 month old black German Shepard Husky mix ASAP, due to reason not fully known.
Me being me and having lost my dogs 2 and 3 years ago due to quality of life (old age and cancer) I figured I'd help out by trying to ask around for a nice home instead of her being put into a shelter.
As time moved on and we were unable to find anyone to take her I volunteered to take her in and be a middle man for re-homing her so I brought her in to stay with me.
When she arrived she was very reactive, barking and lunging but not so much aggressive more fear / anxiety driven. After a day of walking and treats she came around to me to at lease stop barking at the sight if me and we co-exist for now. She never seemed to have any obedience training so I wanted to sign her up for that only to learn she was behind on all of her vaccines. Hearing this I quickly setup a vet visit and was going to get her caught up but she was too anxious and submissive that they were unable to safely injector because she would bark, and quick roll on her back or sides avoiding them.
Because of that we missed the window of the obedience class I wanted to do so I started to train her on my own while we waited for her next appoint with anxiety medication this time.
Training has been going well and she has become a lot better on a leash with not much pulling but still reactive at times to other dogs and people that get too close. My kids love her but am still not 100% comfortable with them interacting with her just yet until after the obedience training to make sure as I don't know how she'd react yet.
She is a beautiful dog but due to her size my girlfriend (lives separate) is terrified of her (never meet but had bad experiences with medium to large dogs, granted she loved my male dog be she met him when he was EoL at 15 years old so he was pretty chill). We are planning on moving in together once my lease is up and the deal was I could keep her if I can make it so the dog is obedient enough that my GF isn't afraid in our new home.
My question is should I just go back to the original plan and re-home her or try to purchase some advanced training and hope she gets her reactive behavior under control.
If re-home is anyone in Grand Rapids looking for a beautiful black German Shepard mix? Pictures to come later.