But my dog – good lord. My normally very well-behaved baby became one hell of a handful for quite a while after that.
Fortunately I eventually got control of him again because I know what I’m doing with dogs and was able to put him back in his place when he challenged me, and he had an excellent temperament to start with (and we had a great relationship), but in the hands of someone less experienced with animals, and/or especially if he had been less well-bred and socialized to begin with, he could have easily escalated *instantly* into a serious nightmare to live with – and a real danger to everyone, because he weighed over 60lbs.
Thankfully, I never had any other problem with him, because I was always able to maintain my alpha status and to fairly easily reassert it when necessary, but I really think I was extremely lucky. The average pet owner would have been in a much worse situation.
It was really pretty scary for a while, because I literally had to alpha roll him a number of times to stop the constant dominance challenges that went on for a while – and I’m not a large woman, so it was not easy to hold him down when I had to.
Of course I was also at greatly increased risk of being bitten and mauled in the process if I had failed to keep him down. Some real bruises and scratches did result. He was at risk of injury as well because of the struggle, particularly on a hard floor.
And this was with a dog who had always clearly acknowledged me as alpha before, too. It clearly just completely flipped in his mind in an instant.
It was astonishing how hard it was to reestablish my own alpha status after just this one incident when I wasn’t even the most direct recipient of the behavior!
I was really angry with that guy for putting both my dog and me in this position, where not only was both of our physical health compromised and endangered, but so was our relationship. I could have lost my beloved companion because of this one incident. He could have lost his life.