Where Can I Get Help With My Dog? Melbourne

[Staranais]

And your vet saying that retraining is expensive and requires prozac (uhhh no) is doing the typical butt-covering exercise a lot of vets do - they don't want to condone a so called aggressive dog to live and then the owner comes back after something really terrible happens.

Also, many vets don't actually know all that much about dog behaviour. I mean, they do learn a little bit about it during their degree so they can give advice on basic pet behaviour problems. But unless they're interested in the area and have done extra research and training in their own time, they're not necessarily going to have much experience at training aggressive dogs.

So in other words, I'd suggest you ignore your vet, and go talk to one of the recommended behaviourists (IMO Kelpei-i really sounds like she knows what she's talking about). You can resort to drugs if the behaviourists can't help you, but they don't have to be the first port of call, whatever your vet told you!

(Yes, this is first hand knowledge - I'm training to be a vet and I just sat through a semesters worth of "animal behaviour" lectures. We did learn some useful things, but I certainly don't think the course qualified my colleagues to go out and cure canine aggression problems...)