Dog adoption in Washington DC 20001
Australian Shepard Dog
"Bentley"

About this Dog

Hi everyone, this is incredibly hard to type and certainly not something I've been taking lightly but the bottom line of this post is that I've come to terms with the fact that we need to rehome our dog, Bentley. Bentley has been a wonderful dog in many ways and his high energy spirit and super affectionate soul would be perfect for the right owner(s). I've loved having Bentley, however, he's proven to be unsafe for us as we've now had multiple food aggression incidents, as well as some random one-offs we've tried to understand and the behaviorist we work with has deemed to be "power assertion/ testing" incidents. Again Bentley is a wonderful dog but given we cannot pin point the issues of his behavior I feel he will be most successful with someone else that has tons of space for him to run and has experience with a high energy dog.Yeah, I know what you're thinking "great dog" and "aggression" don't line up and what's happened in between...so let's start from the beginning. I got Bentley as a puppy from the breeder. He's my first dog that I've enjoyed raising with my boyfriend who grew up with a dog. I did a lot of research and determined I was up for the "fun challenge" that comes with raising a herding dog, an Australian Shepherd at that. I've made sure he has a high quality diet, and appropriate socialization, before and through this pandemic. We've done a few dog training classes (puppy school, dog manners, agility fun, swimming lessons to tackle his initial fear of water which he oh so loves now) and he's oh so very obedient, I mean obsessed with learning new tricks and challenges-- our most recent fun has been getting him to flip when catching ball mid air. He's had one heck of a life and we've put a lot of time and energy to make sure that is so. We've lived in Seattle when we first got him where he's enjoyed hikes, swimming, dog parks, and playing with his pup friends at daycare. He's enjoyed sports such as Treibbal otherwise known as urban herding and we've played around a lot with his instincts making sure his needs are met as a herding dog. We lived in Seattle for most his dog life where he hiked, swam in lakes, traveled with us via car trips 2'd fully enjoying the great PNW. We moved to Washington DC where we made sure to stay consistent to his schedule and activity needs and for the most part he's shown great signs of satisfaction with that. At first I thought maybe the move stressed him but unfortunately the aggression started extremely early. So the aggression...it's come down to food aggression mainly. He's charged my sister, my boyfriend, attacked my dad, and most recently bit and kept attacking me. He also has a quick escalation incident at his daycare where the daycare assistant and him have had an extremely positive relationship. (We know this for certain because we were incredibly particular about our daycare which follows Montessori school protocols, gives structured schedule for his days, gives him outdoor walks, personalize Kong breaks, and 1:1 training sessions. They send videos and have a webcams and he's loved her) Bentley is very food motivated which we love for training and all but it's become obsessive where he hates the "waiting period" of knowing food is coming and not being able to eat it (ie just the time it takes for me to go in the fridge and get his bowl and put food in it). Recently we took him with us to a cabin weekend where we stayed in a tiny home. I picked up his bowls, put water in one bowl, turned around to grab his food and noticed he was hard staring and head jerking towards me. Nervous about previous incidents, I tried to quickly think about what would be upsetting to him and I noticed the bathroom door was closed (where his feeding would occur). My theory is he probably thought I closed the door and blocked his food? But this was as I'm over the sink trying to feed him which I don't think he put together. In a split second before I could pour the food he charged, bit me three times, and backed me into a corner. This is a severe extreme from where things started and we've worked extensively with a behaviorist, and trainer to make sure we follow protocols around resource guarding. Our dog behaviorist has really felt his behavior and off interactions suggest he's often in his head and overthinking situations. She interacted with him and noticed just how much he assesses and while it's a great strength of his intelligence it can be truly tough to manage if he misreads a situation. Initially, we would see the general "warning signs" but now it's immediate escalation, no sign. That all being said, I absolutely love Bentley, but I'm now also incredibly terrified of him. There's a switch between sweet and severely upset which we haven't been able to resolve and seems to be getting worse. Both my boyfriend and I follow positive reinforcement training as well, we make sure he gets adequate food amounts if not a lil extra because he gets plenty of treats and bones for being a super good boy. But it's been tough, my emotional bank is emptying, and I have to be honest with myself and say I think he'd be better fit for someone who really knows what they're doing. My heart would feel a little more full knowing he's passed on to a loving and truly devoted owner. Some ideas I have for best fit for Bentley would be someone whose high energy, maybe has experience with Australian Shepherds or herding dogs in the past, possibly has a lot of running space at home or willing to find consistent outlets for exercise and his energy. Extra if even a dog behaviorist or worked with aggressive dogs in the past. Australian Shepherd sanctuary maybe? We want him to have a safe environment, but we also want you to be safe and though he is sweet 99% of the time it's that 1% that's dangerous and devastating. Probably not for a family at this point. Please let me know if you have any interest in rehoming our Bentley (we're open to flying him which he has done twice now with us in cabin). We really really just want to make sure it's the right people so we'll have plenty of questions and welcome/ encourage the same in return. Again Bentley is a wonderful dog but given we cannot pin point the issues of his behavior I feel he will be most successful with someone else that has tons of space for him to run and has experience with a high energy dog.

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