# Heartbroken My Golden Might be Too aggressive need advice



## Pytheis (Mar 17, 2016)

JoeV84 said:


> My Golden female 4 years old today killed our 4 month old Habanese pup today. It was the worst experience of me and my families life. Not only did i have to say goodbye to a sweet baby pup but now I’m not sure i can trust our Golden around my 18 month toddler and newborn on the way. She’s always been dog food aggressive and why we’ve always kept her monitored and away from other dogs when it’s meal time but this was unwarranted. Has anyone ever experienced this before with this breed? I’m so lost and hurting don’t want to say goodbye to our big girl but i feel like rehoming her is our only option at this point with small children.
> 
> any advice would be so helpful.


I feel like we need a lot more details. What lead to the puppy being killed? Were the dogs being supervised or were they alone? Was food or toys involved? Was the puppy annoying the older dog?

Dog aggression does not equal human aggression, though the resource guarding could be a problem with children. How much training has the golden had?


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

JoeV84 said:


> My Golden female 4 years old today killed our 4 month old Habanese pup today. It was the worst experience of me and my families life. Not only did i have to say goodbye to a sweet baby pup but now I’m not sure i can trust our Golden around my 18 month toddler and newborn on the way. She’s always been dog food aggressive and why we’ve always kept her monitored and away from other dogs when it’s meal time but this was unwarranted. Has anyone ever experienced this before with this breed? I’m so lost and hurting don’t want to say goodbye to our big girl but i feel like rehoming her is our only option at this point with small children.
> 
> any advice would be so helpful.


You have 2 options.

Keep her and never ever get another dog. Because she cannot be trusted with other dogs, particularly puppies. Puppies typically are easier to introduce to household with another dog because they are not seen as a threat by the adult dog who will typically be more patient with a puppy. 

Rehome her and never ever get another dog. Or at least not until your kids are 10+ years old.

Keeping her may seem unreasonable because you are looking at your dog and knowing she killed a puppy.

But a toy breed pup should not have been left alone with your golden. That's the biggest danger when bringing a toy breed puppy home.... when you have a large breed dog. Add to that the complication of your dog not being good around dogs prior to this - based on you keeping her monitored and away from other dogs.

It hurts in addition to all of the other hurt you are feeling. But please be fair to your dog and recognize that it would not have taken very much for her to kill the tiny pup. It is a risk that the breeder of the havanese should have recognized before selling you a puppy and thoroughly discussed with you.

I can't say enough that most people with toy breeds are terrified of large breed dogs - particularly retrievers who have prey drive running through them. It's deeply buried or watered down, but these are dogs who will pounce and grab a small breed dog during play.

Assuming your dog was resource guarding or not wanting anything to do with the toy breed and having the itty bitty getting into space, it may be she snapped - and again, it doesn't take much.

I know somebody through training who had a family golden maul one of her small dogs. And their route to handling the situation is keeping the dogs either crated or on leash. With for a golden that's not a great life.  Which your position right now, you just have the one dog and she could live another 10 years and grow up with your kids.

Resource guarding in a household with small children is very tough. It can be done, but it's not going to be easy. And generally these dogs develop those behaviors around small kids who can be impulsive and they are seen as litter mates or equals by the dogs - this is why most breeders will not place a puppy in a home with children - unless that home is very experienced. That's despite this breed being wonderful with kids. It's also wonderful with other dogs or has that potential. But bad things can happen. Very sorry your family is going through this.


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## GoldenDude (Nov 5, 2016)

I'm so sorry you're going through this experience. When you say she is dog food aggressive is that aggressiveness directed at humans? If so, you have a real problem and rehoming, as difficult as it will be, may be the safest choice.


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## Prism Goldens (May 27, 2011)

How terrible-
I'm sorry your family experienced this. 
Without knowing what happened, it's hard to say whether what she did was predictable or an accident. Food aggression and killing another pet aren't necessarily related.
My son has a 5 mo Havanese, who was here a month ago for a week. I did not leave her alone with my dogs, who haven't got an aggressive bone in their bodies , because of the size disparity and her look of a stuffed toy. I only let her play with my adults one at a time, with me hovering. 
It was for her not them. They were rather amused at her silly fluff bouncing all over. And that to say that I have it very clearly fixed in my mind exactly what an adult Golden and a 5mo Havanese looks like.

I believe -worst case, since you've not told us how it happened- that a GR killing a toy puppy in the worst way is a very different thing than how we'd see a human child interacting with a dog. Not that a dog can't bite or hurt a child- they can- but human children do not present the wind-up stuffed toy visual to a dog that a toy breed can, especially a fluffy one.


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