About Sapphire

Sapphire does have food/toy aggression but how we have always gotten around that is to never have her around if the other dogs are playing with toys (or have bones/treats they're chewing on) and we make sure she eats separately. That's always worked for the whole 10 years. The issue since last year that has come up is her aggression towards our dog jasper (a pit/border collie mix) and when she gets groomed. Between these 2 things it has been harder for us to keep her as she ages. The groomer that she has been with since 2020 (the only one willing to take her) has recently said that she can no longer groom her and has recommended sedated grooming at the vet. The groomer said that it's probably getting worse due to age. As far as her aggression with jasper, she's never drawn blood but she'll try to fight him and it's extremely random. She doesn't do it all the time but when she does we usually keep them separated for the rest of the day. We suspect it might be during her time of the month (she's spayed) but we're not sure what triggers it. What's even weirder is that we have another dog (a cavapoo) that she's never been agressive with so it's only just jasper. The issue we are having as a family is we have 2 young kids (ages 3 and 1) and we fear that as sapphire gets older, she might be aggressive towards them if they accidentally play too rough or something. We want to make sure the kids are safe. If it was just me I'd be fine with keeping her because I know to keep the environment toy free and not to rough play with her. Outside of the groomers and her issue with Jasper she really is a sweet dog which is what has made this decision so hard.

Anne Arundel County
Odenton, Maryland