My Mission to Solve my Dog Training Problems

Hi everyone,
So My wife and I recently adopted a dog named Linus, he was 11 months old and he is a Rat Terrier mix. The first couple of days things were great, I have to admit he is quite cute. Then my brother came to visit. When he came to the door Linus Started barking and jumping on the slider door and going crazy. I let my brother in and Linus attacked him. It was like he was a totally different dog. He bit my brother on the hand and actually drew blood. It was the weekend of the Super bowl and my brother was just coming over to watch the game.

I yelled at him and grabbed the leash and put it on him, He was growling and barking and finally I had to put him in his crate upstairs to watch the game with my brother. As time went on this continued every time we had company over I had to put him on a leash and hold him back. My wife and I were at a point where we were saying to ourselves that if we couldn't get this dog trained then we would have to take him back to the pound and they would possibly have to put him down. We would never want to see that happen to any dog and at this point we were quite attached to Linus and we were not willing to go that route, at least not yet.

We decided to hire a professional dog trainer and see if a dog training could help out with this crazy dog Aggression. We found a Dog Trainer who was recommended to us through a friend and we hired her to come and work with Linus 2-3 days a week for an hour each at $40.00 and hour. She had some great tips and things for us to try and begin Linus' dog training. Not all the training was for this one Dog Aggression problem. Our dog trainer incorporated training in general. She said it was important we focus on dog obedience training first in order to get Linus to be able to cooperate with training for his dog aggression.

We started using the simple obedience tips the dog trainer told us to use and they seemed to be working pretty well. Linus was listening to us better and following simple commands like Sit and Down. But we still were having this issue with his dog aggression. Although I have to admit that Linus is a more well trained dog as far as normal dog training commands are concerned after 5 weeks of private dog training lessons we have seen little results as far as his dog aggression getting any better.

It seems that when our dog trainer is over we can have guests over and she is able to control him, he will be on his leash and he will still bark and growl but after about 5 minutes of our guest being there he will calm down and just lay down. This in itself is a huge improvement over how he was before and we are pleased however, once our dog trainer leaves forget it....

It seems once our dog trainer leaves and is gone for a bit if someone comes over he turns back into a nut case and barks like a crazy dog. My niece came over last week and he went after her and made a nice scrape on her ankle. She was brave and said it was OK but her eyes filled up and now she is to afraid to come over. I am not sure what we are going to do. We have spent over $500.00 in dog training for Private in home dog training lessons and although he overall is a better dog the one problem we wanted solved is still quite evident.

My feeling right now is that if we don't solve these crazy dog problems and fast we will have to have him put down, we just can't take the chance. I find it quite funny that he was so much better with the dog trainer there and when she was gone he turned into a crazy dog. This makes me believe it is more us than the dog. We must be doing something wrong and I am on a mission to find out what it is....