About Dexter

We are a large family and were looking for a dog. Last December, Dexter's sweet face showed up on Next Door and we instantly fell in love / had to meet him. I sent a PM to the owner and she felt this was a great connection so we had a 1 day trial run with Dexter. All went well and 2 days later he was ours. After a few days, we began to notice behaviors that concerned us. Behaviors she didn't disclose or share. Could be these were new due to the life changes he was going through - we aren't sure. He would pace and patrol the house all day. He didn't want to go outside and roam. He was very attached and felt insecure if he wasn't near us. (He didn't damage property while we were at work during the day - just always following us and prefers to be closeby when we are home.) The biggest issue we noticed was when someone knocked on the door. He would run from wherever he was in the house to the door and bark / scratch aggressively. Then it progressed into anyone coming IN the front door. He would charge to the front door -- even if it was us -- and bark aggressively. With 5 kids in the house and an open door policy friends are constantly coming and going. It became a huge challenge and we were concerned something more would happen. Worst case a bite - which to this day he hasn't done. His behaviors intensified and we brought in a dog training friend to help. Following through with her training methods did help...and he seems to be a very trainable dog. However, some of the behaviors didn't stop and over time he became more and more protective of us if anyone came over. Including our children's friends. Unfortunately, now it's at the point where they would rather their friends not come over, want him crated before a friend comes over or we have to alert people in advance to please not knock or ring the bell - to call or text us when they arrive so we can get Dexter situated properly. It's not a great way to live. And definitely not sustainable as we have lots of people coming and going on a daily basis. We took him to our vet for a long meeting and he suggested we meet with Julie Bond, a certified animal behaviorist. Julie is incredible! She met with us and observed Dexter for several hours. In her professional opinion Dexter needs to be in a much smaller home with much fewer people coming and going - no amount of training is going to change his behavior. Dexter's first 6 years were with a single person in a very contained space and Julie's opinion is that is the type of environment he needs to be in to be well adjusted. It was very difficult to hear we'd need to re-home him but we do know it's the best option for Dexter. We have the report from Julie for anyone interested in adopting him. We have contacted countless animal rescue organizations without luck. In order for him to enter ARF's system, he will need to be surrendered at the shelter and we both feel terrible about dropping him off there - he is very attached to us and is a good dog. Dexter is a shepherd pit-bull mix and is 6 years old. He is in great health, we have his vet records and is kind, loving and very sweet! He would make a great companion for a single person with a smaller home and he loves other dogs. We need to have him re-homed immediately.

Contra Costa County
Alamo, California