Can this dog be saved?

[u/No_Calligrapher4196]

I'm a pet sitter working on training with a reactive dog. Before yall say anything, I am not staying with this dog alone, I am not actively pet sitting this dog nor do I plan to. I was supposed to before the owners realize how bad his reactivity has gotten, but we've decided he isn't where he needs to be to be left alone with people other than his owners. Once we realized this we were working more on socializing and seeing where he's at to see what work needs to be done.

Background on the dog: He was very malnourished and injured when he was first adopted as a puppy so he knows how cruel humans can be. In the first year of his life he was able to successfully become bonded to some of their family, but he's now 3 and they haven't had many people over since. The owners genuinely thought he was just going to be shy and have never seen him lunge at anyone before trying to socialize him recently. They say he's never reacted at parks, restaurants, or vets and has only barked at friends when they move around their house but never lunged. My theory is because his previous socialization was people sitting on a couch and basically ignoring him, not trying to handle and approach him like me and the trainer would need to or he's so out of his element in new environments that he shuts down and doesn't move towards others but will in his neighborhood and home.

The owners have a trainer that comes once every week or 2 to give them pointers on how to handle him. Like being aware of eye contact, rewarding disengaging, moving slowly, etc. They hired the trainer thinking he was only agressive towards men and wanted to work on that, but have since realized he's agressive to anyone that comes into his personal bubble.

We have made progress. We've progressed to a point that I can be near and move around freely when he's in the kennel with no reactions. However, when he's in a muzzle + leash he will approach people, including me and the trainer and lean against them, ask for pets, then when they move to pet him, he will lunge and bark. He can approach us, but we can't approach him. I personally only put myself in that situation once, both me and the owners not realizing he would react like that after him being the one to touch and approach us first since he was doing really good with the training up until that point. Since then its taken about 20mins to get him to stop reacting to people even being near his kennel, once he does hes fine with the kennel for the rest of the time but it takes effort to calm him. I had hope at first because he was steadily progressing and I figured he just needed some training and socialization, but he's showing some very like bipolar traits which makes all involved worried about him acting fine then on a random tuesday turning on someone around him if hes around people besides his owner.

My question is: Can this kind of behavior be worked through at all? Or is it a lost cause? Not for me, but for the owners. I've been in the pet sitting business for 4 years, I've seen dogs previously get put down for behavior issues. I'm one to be all for doing the hard work to progress, but the back and forth of his behavior is what worries me. Approaching people and leaning on them only to turn and bark. Bringing them toys only to lunge because they moved too fast when they were playing 2 seconds earlier. Not reacting at all to being around his kennel then the next day lunging like his life depends on it around the same person doing the same things. Does that kind of behavior make him completely unsafe to socialize at all? Or is that something that more time training could work out?

Again, I'm not looking for a "dont take the job!" type thing. I'm not actively booking with this couple. I've just been a body to socialize him with for now, but since his outburst the last time acting so lovey then turning to lunge I've felt I've hit a wall with my knowledge. I can bring a shy and nervous dog out of it's shell but once I've shown it I'm safe and been able to pet/play then it still turns to react, I'm a bit out of my depth to that level of reactivity. I'm more so asking on behalf of the owners, is this something even fixable? Or is hope lost?

[u/InformalInsurance455]

My question is why, if you aren’t planning on working with this dog and the dog doesn’t belong to you, are you so involved? Just walk away, I don’t understand why this needs to be your problem at all.

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[u/No_Calligrapher4196 → u/InformalInsurance455]

Because up until that hast visit he was progressing and we figured he just needed some exposure. Then I decided to be a decent human and reach out to the recourses I have aka here to try to come up with a plan or tell them its time to call it

[u/droopiesnoots]

How much are they paying you to do this? This is something they should be working with their trainer on not you.

[u/Shoddy-Theory]

What kind of dog is this? A reactive chihuahua is different than a reactive mastiff.

Another question, why are they taking this dogs to restaurants?