Behavior issues

[anchor man]

A buddy of mine has two labs, a black and a brown. The black one has always been very weary of other dogs and has gotten agressive to the point of biting my dog, and recently bit the brown one that it lives with (unprovoked). She's never show agression towards people, but I wouldn't trust her for a second around children. In an attempt to help my buddy out, are there people out there that work with dogs of this nature? It's seem well beyond a training issue, but more of a behavior/social problem.

Thanks much

[Blaze]

anchorman - ouch, not good. The one thing I'd be interested in knowing is why this dog turns into a biter when it does. There's usually 2 reasons that I've encountered:

1) fear biter - dog bites/gets aggressive when feeling threatened. These dogs typically need a low stress, quiet environment to live, ie AWAY FROM PEOPLE out on the farm.

2) dominance biter - dog shows aggression cuz he thinks he's all that. This dog needs to know where he falls in the pecking order (master and kids first), and for lack of better terms, needs his butt kicked to put him in his place. These dogs can be worked with to come to that understanding and will *usually* be OK, but some of them will just keep waiting for the opportunity to take the top dog spot again and show dominance over dogs, kids, wife, etc.

Either way, it's not a good situation and your buddy needs to intervene with this dog NOW before something terrible happens. Keep us posted.

Blaze