Erik, I know you work in the medical field, but it never ceases to amaze me your level of knowledge!
I know you're in medicine, but you seem to know EVERYTHING!! jeez!!
bd, I have a friend who had a rottweiler for many years. When the pup was young, his mom took it to aggressive/large breed specific (Rott, Pitt, Dobie, etc. ) training. Basically the class was designed for any type of dog that is too big to be thrown off/kicked off by the average person. you may want to look into some training classes like that. The training stressed structure in the dogs life, and also strict obedience in all forms of commands. According to the trainer, if a dog understands that it doesn't "have" to sit when ordered, its not as likely to follow commands in a more tense situation (it's just been kicked, or something like that) When my friend's dog was done its training, if you told it to sit, it would sit until otherwise told too, even with food in front of it, out in the rain, etc. (it was always kind of funny to look outside and see the dog sitting in the yard because you told him to sit and didn't release him
) The dog was trained in all sorts of commands, and my friend's whole family was trained in reining him in if
hit the fan (going from simply tugging the leash to hitting specific pressure points that would put the dog on the ground immediately in a worse case scenario)
if they have anything like that where you are, it may be something to look into though. The class was expensive, but I guess where we lived (OK) the city and the SPCA would give scholarships to reduce the cost.
