Very young APBT found.....has issues

****As far as the food agression goes...the poor thing was probably just starved. Feed him half of the time from your hand, the other half of the times being fed, pet him the whole time while he is eating from his head to his tail. Be firm, let him know that you are the master and without you he would starve.****Take immediate actions and he will soon learn to trust and obey his new masters.

 

LadyRampage had some great advice.
I personally would ONLY hand feed the pup for awhile, and when you do start letting him eat out of a bowl...
Play with him first and hand feed a small amount of kibble
THEN, put a small amount in a bowl and give him the bowl showing him attention all the while.
AFTER, allowing him to eat for aprox 2 min pick the bowl up and set on counter...
ANY aggression warrants immediate correction.
If after 3 days of this he does not "catch on" and show improvement...

PUT HIM DOWN !!!!!

I train all pups and dogs like this from jump street.

That Buster is an awfully cute pup, and I dislike culling small pups, but
you might ( hopefully not ) be in for a disaster.

We had a male Lhasa Apso with terrible aggression problems over food and we put him down...he bit my kids and myself too many times, and no matter what we did he was incorrugible.

Re: the aggression towards other animals:
These dogs have been bred to be game over the years, and it sounds like you are trying to take that out...good luck !

 

Thanks everyone for the great advice! And yes, when I'm not home, the pits are in crates. As far as Buster is concerned, he seems to be getting over his food aggresiveness. We can now pet him on the head and neck along with the rest of his body while he's eating without him growling. He eats from my hands only for the time being - and something else we discovered is that when eating out of my hands, if the other dog comes up to eat with him, he's fine with it. I figure my next step will be holding the food in my hand over the bowl, and moving from there. The poor thing's never known life not having to fight for food I'm afraid. The vet told me today that he thinks Buster is 10 wks, which would mean we've had him since he was about 5 weeks old. I appreciate everyone's concern for our safety and the safety of the dogs, but let me assure you I have no intentions of allowing any chance for the dogs to get in a scrap, with each other or any other dog, no matter whether they have actually shown signs of aggresiveness or not. Thanks again.

 

i know i sounded harsh when i said to put it down and it is noble of you to give it such effort, but from my experience you are taking a big chance. even if you stop the food aggression towards you and your husband the dog needs to also know that your children are "the boss". even sometimes that does not matter. as the dog grows older it will continually attempt to establish rank inside it's "pack". if the food aggression doesn't stop and you decide to find it a "responsible" home there is still a chance of it biting someone. i don't care how responsible the person is. why would you want a dog that you have to even question. in my opinion all pits that show any type of human aggression should be put down, no questions asked. it is not a desired character for this breed, or any breed for that matter, but especially the pit bull. there is enough bad press and exagerated horror stories. we don't need more. you may be able to teach it to stop, maybe, but the inclination is still there. it's kinda like a child molester, why let them back on the streets, regardless of the amount of "therapy" how many of them repeat the offense? it's a time bomb.

 

I had the same problem with Shrek, I rescued him when he was 2 weeks old and had to bottle feed him , he was aggressive even then, growled when he was touched or moved. I have a 15 year old maltese as well and he would start in on her.

The only thing I can say is be patient and give him lots of attention, let him know you care. Shrek now at 3 yrs old is very melow, he is very active, hyper, but loved kids, he actually sits infront of you know and smacks you with his paw to let you know he wants you to pet him. I rescued a 1 year old pit bull after he was 1 aswell and he is doing great, they have their issues here and there but you would never think he was that same little puppy that would go after anything that moved.

He bit me so many times as a puppy but that made me try harder, I would force hug him....heheheh I would lay on the floor next to his blanket and touch him for hours, him growling the whole time of course.

He broke out of it though, when he was about 6 months he became very friendly and attached to me, now I can't get him to leave me alone.

It just takes patience and lots of attention if you have it an are willing to give it to him. I don't believe in putting them down, he's still young enough to learn what's right and wrong, if he was older then putting him down or for adoption would be a good idea. If you rescued him with a true heart then work with him. I have 2, shrek was rescued at 2 weeks old and phatty at 1 year old. I took a big risk with her but I couldn't bare watching her owners abuse her when I took her from them. She's one of the sweetest dogs now too, she has come out of her aggressive and traumatized stage. They are both doing good.

All my pets are rescues, but I think they came to me for a reason so I have taken the risk to help them all. If you don't have the time to help him then let someone else who has the time try.

 

Bully had a couple of good points,

the dog needs to also know that your children are "the boss"
All exercises should also be done with your children if their ages are appropriate...
the dog needs to know that all humans lead the pack.

as the dog grows older it will continually attempt to establish rank inside it's "pack"
This is true and that is why with many problem behaviors we need to go back to step 1
every time this problem behavior resurfaces.
For example, you say this pup is doing much better, and I am VERY happy for you.
As I said, I HATE culling small pups.
However, this behavior is likely to resurface about the time he starts going through
"doggy puberty"...you just neeed to remember to go back to step 1 and re-train.
Males are pretty notorious for testing boundaries...IMO

Shrek,
I do not mean to seem argumentative at all, but not all animals have such great rehab potential. The Lhasa I put down, was truly viscious !
Where there is a chance that a child might be in jeopardy; the childs welfare should always come first...thats why we put our little Lhasa down...he was beautiful, but ABSOLUTELY NOT fit for children.

 

What were you thinking trying to keep 2 male APBT's in one home.Even if Buster did'nt have issues I'd say that once he got older at some point your to MALE pitbulls would have a fight!You obviously do not know much about the breed!Since Buster is already is unable to submit to an older dog we can see that he was seperated from his mom at an early age as she would have nipped him and taught him to submit to her.Even APBT puppies submit to older dogs if they spent at least six weeks with their moms.Buster will def fight with Maverick and possibly mess up his temperament too!If you have spent time training and socializing Maverick the last thing u want to do is mess that all up and get him into a fight!2 MALE PITS CAN'T WORK!and when these dogs fight it takes a lot to get them to stop.

 

this is the truth. when i was younger and owned my first pit i didn't know any better and got another male pup. they were fine until the pup was about 6 months old. after that it was a constant hassle trying to keep the two apart. i was stubborn and dumb and thought i could break them of it, but i was wrong. the last time they got into it they nearly killed each other and it took me a long time to get them apart, even with the breaking stick. i ended up finding a new home for one, which saved one of their lives. unless you have a large yard and your dogs are securely chained or fenced, i would not recomend having two males together, or for that matter, two of any sex together.