We live at the end of a private lane. Our dogs run loose on our property, and are sweetie-pies in general.
However, when someone walks down our (PRIVATE) lane to show their kids our horses, they typically ask if our dogs (who bark at strangers) are nice. I reply, “Oh, no! They’re all vicious rescues. That big one killed a 2 year old.” This kind of thing has generated rumors that we eventually hear about.
We’ve had two somewhat reactive dogs and one complete hellhound.
Sadie (pit/hound mix) had fear aggression toward large dogs, especially dark-colored ones. She was aggressive but we’re pretty sure it was fear-based. She was unafraid of dogs smaller than herself and played with them happily. This led to the amusing situation of meeting neighbor puppies, becoming friends, and then when the puppies grew into gigantic or imposing adults, Sadie still acted like they were puppies and frolicked with dogs she would otherwise have assaulted. One neighbor had two blue pit bulls she adored as puppies and loved when they were bigger than she was.
Ginny, our current foster experiment, did not start out reactive, but has been developing leash reactivity due to other people’s stupidity. She was originally fine with strange dogs, but after numerous incidences of being snarled at, barked at from close range, and even bitten by dogs she met while walking, she’s now tense when seeing any strange dog and easily slips over into furious barking and straining at the leash, although frequently able to suppress herself if I am carefully stroking her (belly especially) and talking comfortingly. I’m not kidding about stupidity – many times while walking her, I asked people approaching with dogs “Is your dog OK meeting strange dogs?” “Is he safe to approach?” and the like and they smiled blandly and nodded, then moments later, when their dog furiously tried to bite Ginny, they said “Yeah, he does that sometimes.” No amount of talking to some people appeared to result in them actually processing what I was asking. We have training classes scheduled starting next week to try to undo as much of this as we can.
The “hellhound” case is the sad, sad story of Diamond, who started out wanting to kill everything nonhuman and frankly wasn’t too sure about some humans either, and eventually sank into such a state of nervous alert, aggression and constant tension that her quality of life was negligible.
I had a dog aggressive male Akita for 11 years. He wasn’t aggressive with his dogs, and he wasn’t aggressive with every dog he met, but the dogs he was aggressive with he wanted to kill. He was 100 lbs of muscle. It made walking him an “interesting” experience. We lived in a rural area, so keeping him away from other dogs when he was off our property and on leash was possible. On our property, we fenced in 2 acres and he had the run of that with our other dogs. Generally, hypervigilance and avoidance kept him away from other dogs in town (all 7000 people).
I socialized him extensively as a puppy, but the aggression kicked in by about 1 y.o. Some dogs are just wired that way.
I did say something stronger when others didn’t heed my first warning and kept coming. He never actually hurt another dog badly (some blood-draw nips and pin-downs) but he would go absolutely, theatrically batshit and I certainly wasn’t going to risk him hurting another pooch.
In his senior years he was nearly killed by two off-leash mastiffs (he was on leash). Poor guy.
Cooper was a gorgeous black lab who adored every person he met and was very kid friendly. He didn’t “look the part” like our pitbull boy does. I guess there’s a bit if an advantage if a dog aggressive pup is a breed some folks are cautious around.
I totally agree with the dog who looks like the friendly breed and turns into a devil-dog when meeting a person or other dog. My Dalmatian was just that way. She looked unassuming like a sweet Dal should be. It was a fulltime job keeping her outta trouble. I never want to go through that again. Give me a dumb little Yorkie anyday. I don’t have it in me anymore.
P.S. I love my dumb little Yorkie and my pitiful obese beagle to distraction.
It was extra stressful because I didn’t have a yard for much of Coop’s life so I had to walk him a lot (and far) and scout out isolated areas where he could safely run free (not an easy thing in So Cal).
Yeah. 
Our Diamond was the super-aggressive one. Twice she managed to snake out of her harness while outside – both times I dived on her like a football player on a fumble and kept her from potentially wreaking havoc. Eventually we walked her with a muzzle, a martingale collar AND a martingale-style harness and a separate leash attached to each. (Martingale-style means the strap pulls tighter when pulled against, like a choke chain, but has a stop ring to prevent it from becoming too tight and possibly causing damage or strangulation).
One human would exit the door first, without dog, and scout. When the safe signal was given, the physically stronger human would bring Diamond out in her Hannibal Lecter fan club outfit.
Late at night, after my wife’s office building closed, we would often drive Diamond there to run up and down the long carpeted hall chasing balls and frisbees. It was the only exercise she got, and she loved it. She was so damaged that* while playing and wagging her tail* she still occasionally tore a sandwich-sized chunk out of my pants or shirt in a sort of casual, subconscious violence.
We were collectively miserable.
Bless you. It must have been a mix of sorrow and relief when she passed on.
I must say, although I missed her, when my Dalmatian died it was a relief. She was happiest running full out and chasing whatever you threw. She adored swimming, too. It was a sad thing to see her look longingly at an open field and never being able to go there. She loved us but was really unhappy to be leashed and supervised every minute of her life because we never really trusted her. And, it wasn’t her fault at all. Alas.
Aggressive dog behavior develops early, keyed off the owner and/or environment. Once set, it’s there and that’s really about all you can say/do about it. Any other dog approaching is always viewed as a threat until after proper introductions are made. It could take more than 1 try before a dog like this will accept any other dog.
Since I am not a dog whisperer, I don’t have any useful advice except to be cautious.
We used to have a found dog, mixed german shephard & collie, who was able to tell the difference between men & women, no matter what they were wearing. Women or young boys were fine, but adult men really set her off, even our adult male neighbor who was always friendly to her. Sometimes she would bark fiercely at him while wagging her tail. We theorized that some man had mistreated her in the past, and she could never completely forget or forgive. The past is a curse.
If ours had ever showed any aggression toward humans I’m not sure what we would have done. I guess (or hope) the rescue wouldn’t have offered her in the first place. She was a stereotypical big bulging muscled pit bull, but 100% friendly to people, never an exception her whole life, a doll. Just 100% hostile to other dogs. That seemed a risk worth taking while trying to improve the situation. But we were never able to do anything about it actually except keep her clear of other dogs, till literally her final days and we knew from her loss of aggression toward other dogs the end was near (sob). 
I think the dog aggression comes from the collie. They are very protective against other predators. They see dogs as predators. I have had pretty good luck introducing aggressive dogs to other dogs during an activity such as hunting and they were fine but never reliable around strange dogs. I think in Ceaser’s dog training books he deals with precisely this problem. I really like his methods and results.