Aggressive Puppy Towards Other Dogs

by Stephanie
(Oregon)

We have a 13 week old male Mini Australian Shepherd named Leon. He is absolutely adorable and is very loving towards us, but hasn't been around other dogs since he left his mother 3 weeks ago. He was the last puppy left and we were told he was one of the smallest in the litter.

We just took him to a puppy socializing class and he barked, growled, and tried to attack all the other puppies who were just playing. We had to stand about 10 feet away and hold him in order for him to calm down. We thought maybe he just needed to get used to them but after an hour his behavior remained the same.

I talked with a trainer and she recommended that we start slowly with some obedience training with one other calm adult dog so he can start to associate positive things with other dogs. Has anyone else had this problem? Or any advice how to stop this? We are going to start bringing him around other dogs but I'm afraid other owners aren't going to want their dogs around our naughty, mean dog!

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