[Nathans_Dad]

Guys,

I'm really upset about this. We have a dog, Lucy. She is about 1 1/2 years old now. I adopted her out of a humane society shelter in San Antonio after our Lab died. We adopted her at about 7 weeks, she had been found in a dumpster with one of her litter mates. Anyhow, long story short, she has always been a very nervous dog, very skittish. Over the last year or so she has gotten more and more aggressive towards anyone outside our immediate family. Usually when people come over she runs into her kennel and growls. If she is caught in the open her hackles go up and she acts like Cujo. She even growls and puts her hackles up if she sees anyone in the street or through the fence. She has never shown aggression towards anyone in our family, except that she growled once when we brought our latest kid home, Abby.

Things came to a head today, my son came home from school with his friend who lives next door. Usually we put Lucy in her kennel if we know kids are coming over but I didn't know my wife was bringing two kids home. She didn't bite him, but came awfully close. I have never seen her be that aggressive, my wife said that she has seen it before, though.

I'm at the point where I am considering surrendering the dog to the local animal shelter. We have 3 kids under 5 and another one on the way. There is no way I can have an aggressive dog in our house. Things are likely to just get worse when the other kids get older and their friends start coming over.

I have tried training her, walking her, exposing her to people, nothing has worked. The only thing I have not tried is one of those boarding training schools.

Any advice? It kills me to have to take her back to the animal shelter, but I would never forgive myself if she bit a child.

The other issue is I don't want to send the wrong message to my kids, I'm a little concerned that they will somehow think that we will send them away too if they misbehave...