New Wife's Male Rescue Dog Showing Aggression Toward My 3 Female Labs
Apologies in advance for the long post.....Need some unbiased advice!
I just got married in December. The wife has a 5yo dog, a Rottweiler/Shepherd mix, that she adopted when he was 1yo and she was in a previous relationship. They ended up splitting....and he started peeing in the floor and becoming neurotic. He was high energy and wild, but she took him to obedience training and crate trained him and his behaviors did improve. He would go to the dog park, go on walks, and he did well. No aggression issues whatsoever. She enrolled in school....and randomly, he began to pee when he knew she was leaving the house. She took him to training again and the trainer said that he had dominance issues and he was "submissive peeing" and that she had to hold him to a very strict routine. The second the routine was broken (even feeding him 1-3 minutes late) he flipped out, jumped, pawed at her until she bled, etc.
She then went through a series of roommates that had dogs and the aggression issues with other dogs really started....lots of scuffles and dog fights happened, both at his fault and the fault of the other dogs. Mainly, possession over her.
She then moved and got her own place. The peeing started again, and got so bad to the point where she would come home from work and he would immediately pee...he would get into the trash, destroy the door, scream when she left and continue it for the entire day (in an apartment complex). She couldn't reprimand him, because he would pee everywhere. She maneuvered her entire life around to accommodate his behavior, routine and schedule, and things became tolerable.
Enter the situation with me. We are now married. She moved in at the end of December. That's when the current issues started.
He has MAJOR separation anxiety issues....whenever she leaves the house to run errands, he literally screams and howls like someone is tearing him apart and scratches at the doors, even though I'm here. He's also extremely territorial and really possessive of her. The first week they moved in, we started having issues between our dogs. I have 3 female senior Labradors who are the most docile, calm and sweetest creatures alive. Week one, he was super possessive of her and nipped/snarled at my dogs when he was on the couch and my dogs got even somewhat close to them from walking by. So now, he's not allowed on the couch at all. This has clearly made him more resentful toward them, causing more aggression. All toys have had to be put away because of territory issues and fights between them. There have been multiple instances of him RANDOMLY biting/attacking my Yellow Lab for no reason whatsoever. She'll just be standing nearby and he will latch on to her face. Blood has been drawn on multiple occasions. Once, after he bit her, my wife grabbed him and flipped him onto his back and he urinated all over her and himself. He's always trying to grab food off of plates...paws at you until skin is broken...doesn't listen...and is really unhappy with the change. He clearly hates my dogs and the fact that he no longer has full dominance over the situation and access/attention to his mom. The submissive peeing is really ramping up any time you raise your voice at him or if he does something wrong.
Over the last two weeks, he's shown aggression towards me. He's never bitten me, but he has twice raised a lip and made a growling noise. The level of anxiety that we have over this is extremely high, which the dogs can clearly sense. It just isn't working. We thought we would give it time because of the changes, but it's gotten worse after two months. He's totally unpredictable. Thinking of the future, a child cannot be exposed to that type of animal. Tonight, she brought up the topic of finding him a new home because he clearly cannot be around other dogs due to attachment and behavioral issues. She admitted that she probably shouldn't have kept him after she adopted him because he was so out of control, but she held on to hope that things would get better after training, as she was living alone with no other dogs.
So, here we are. She's had him for 4 years....he worships her....but it's literally tearing our home-life apart. Would we be major jerks for re-homing him after she's had him that long? We are both really concerned about the safety of the Labradors and have to keep them separated whenever we are not home. Our schedules are about to change to where we will both be gone more frequently, and I worry about my dogs. No one in the house is happy.
ANY advice would be greatly appreciated.