End of Week 22: Tough Spot

I wish this would be a happy post about my recent happenings, but I'm pretty stressed out about our five year old french bulldog Coltrane.

Coltrane, our five year old french bulldog

She has always been really protective of me since a little pup, and has caused me much stress being around other people, especially in the home.  She constantly jumps and nips at someone who enters the house/apartment, and if it's a group of people, she'll single out one person and always lunge at them whenever they come near me.  It's really frustrating because she gets worse when I interject, even when I'm the one she's trying to protect.  She has some weird glitch in her brain that just makes her focus on attacking that one person, no matter what.  After five months or so with her, I hired a trainer to come to our home to fix it.  I know one visit wouldn't do much, but I had to try something.  It didn't help as she still lunged at my ex-boyfriend whenever he got close to me even though I tried following our trainer's advice.

She also hates dancing, high-fives, sudden movements, dice rolling, card shuffling, hugs and other dogs at the dog parks.  Most of this she hates when I'm in the room, but she still hates other dogs at the park when she's with the hubby.

I thought she would grow out of this, but at five years old, she's just gotten worse.  My husband is with her more than I am since I work full-time, and takes care of her almost more than I do.  But she still hates when he gets close to me; when we hug, she's gotten better about jumping at the hubs, but she will still come and sit right in between us on the floor.  Whenever we play games with dice or cards, she'll become alert and sit at my husband's feet and start licking him constantly and try nipping at his hands when she gets a chance.  We have to put her in her crate when we play, and then she will just start licking her crate for up to 30 minutes.

I have tried everything from squirt bottles, ignoring her, crate training, even tried to reward her when she did the right thing, but nothing has ever worked.  Ever.  My theory is that she was neglected when she was a puppy; I saw her for sale at six months old, and she was half the price of her brothers and sisters because no one adopted her when she was eight weeks old (which is when most of them go to other homes).  I put a down payment on her, but didn't get her until she was eight months old.  I have no idea how she was treated for her first eight months of her life, and because she's so protective and doesn't like loud, sudden noises, she may have been abused or witnessed abuse or just neglected.  But these are just theories.

Now that I'm pregnant, I have a feeling she's gotten even worse because she senses the baby and is in over-protective mode.  Last night was the worst I've ever seen her.  Hubby came and laid on the couch next to me, and she started lunging at him.  When he told her to stop, she wouldn't.  When I got up and started to pull her away, she lunged at his face.  She really tried to bite his face, which she has never done before.  I put my full weight on top of her and it made her worse-she really wanted to attack him.  Her eyes were super dilated and wouldn't take them off of the hubs.  As I was trying to pick her up to put her in her crate, she was using her full force to pull away from me to get at him.  He didn't do anything except try to lay next to me.  It was kind of a terrifying experience.

What's really sad is that the other 80% of the time she's a big sweetheart.  She just lays next to both us in the mornings and cuddles.  She plays really well with our other pup Miles, and never hurts him intentionally.  They get rough, but just dog-play rough.  She's fun to play with, and since she's a lazy dog she's pretty quiet and mellow the rest of the time.  And when we used to hike all the time, she was great at following us off leash (but not when lizards or rabbits were present).

I have to admit I've never been really great with pets in the past; I've had so many animals in my life come and go: terrible luck with cats, as almost all of them were run over...rabbits came and went...hamsters disappeared and even one ate another one's head off (gross right?)...rats were released into the wild...goldfish would die easily...chinchilla was too much to handle...turtles were high-maintenance...I even had a puppy in middle school, but I was no where near responsible enough to take care of it by myself so she left me after a couple months.  I had a puppy before Coltrane too that I adopted from the pound-he was a big lab/pit mix, and even after a month of class-training, I couldn't control him from biting my ankles and being a nuisance.  He left me about a month after Coltrane came into my life.

So I'm really in a tough situation right now with Coltrane.  She literally scared me so much last night to the point where I don't know if we can handle her anymore.  We don't have the money to get her proper training, and she may not attack the baby, but I don't want her attacking my husband while he's watching.  And I get worried when the baby starts to grow up as a toddler, and he'll be moving around, dancing, basically doing things Coltrane hates.  It's scary.  But at the same time, part of me doesn't want to give up on her either.  Even though she has some weird OCD brain glitch, I want her to be well-taken care of.

So for those friends and family out there reading this post, it would be very much appreciated to get some advice, as I'm at a lost of what to do with her.  I thought dogs were supposed to be man's best friend and cause relaxation instead of so much stress and worry.  I've put up with this behavior for over four years now, but I don't know if I can take it much longer.