Not sure about mum's dog, he does seem mentally unstable to be honest. His whole family are very social dogs and are always about town and he has been too, but he dithers between being like them and being aggressive. It's just him. His family, direct siblings and parents etc are all local to the area and none are aggressive, he comes from a pet-bred line rather than a fighter-bred line.
He was stable in a friendly manner, before he got very ill and nearly died about a year ago, and he's never been the same since. Our tomcat got the same illness at the same time, also nearly died, and also has not mentally nor physically been the same since. Both are luckier than many other dogs and cats in that town which did not survive. I've had a fair bit of experience with animals (and humans) becoming mentally unstable after severe illness, so I don't think this bizarre switching between behaviors is just a feature of his breed in his case, though it is certainly known to be in other cases. Maybe it's something dormant that surfaced after the near-death illness. The tomcat's also quite aggressive to other cats after his illness whereas he wasn't like that before, and I've usually found a correlation between some level of permanent physical damage and heightened aggression with animals. Maybe it's akin to the best defense being offense.
My dog's actually the only one he's ever mauled, though he has been threatening to others on and off. Don't worry, we do keep a close eye on him.
He was stable in a friendly manner, before he got very ill and nearly died about a year ago, and he's never been the same since. Our tomcat got the same illness at the same time, also nearly died, and also has not mentally nor physically been the same since. Both are luckier than many other dogs and cats in that town which did not survive. I've had a fair bit of experience with animals (and humans) becoming mentally unstable after severe illness, so I don't think this bizarre switching between behaviors is just a feature of his breed in his case, though it is certainly known to be in other cases. Maybe it's something dormant that surfaced after the near-death illness. The tomcat's also quite aggressive to other cats after his illness whereas he wasn't like that before, and I've usually found a correlation between some level of permanent physical damage and heightened aggression with animals. Maybe it's akin to the best defense being offense.
My dog's actually the only one he's ever mauled, though he has been threatening to others on and off. Don't worry, we do keep a close eye on him.
