u/ApprehensiveSpare524

This might be the stupidest thing ever, so bear with me

My dog is 9.5 so not young but not like he’ll die tomorrow (hopefully)

The issue is, I want to give him everything because he’s older and I don’t want to feel like “I wish I did more of __” or “I wish I had ___” one more time

But this is seriously impacting my life lol

He paws for attention, which I’ve always been fine to kinda say fuck off not right now. But every time he does it I think “he’ll die one day” and put aside what I’m going to pet him. I can’t get anything done. If I don’t give into the whim I instantly feel guilty.

The biggest issue:

He sleeps in the bed. It was occasional but we shaved him - and now it’s constant.

So between my beanstalk of a boyfriend and this dog, it’s taking me hours to fall asleep. But every night I think that when he does go I’ll wish I could have him impacting my asleep

Moving him around in the bed is not an option. He will move himself back to the least uncomfortable option.

The best solution I can think is for BSB (beanstalk boyfriend) to sleep on the couch… not sure he’d go for that.

I am currently pretzeled in bed, so conflicted, uncomfortable, and exhausted, sending an SOS to Reddit for some emotional insight

Okay so I expect a lot of hate for this post - so please be as nice as possible

My dog is reactive to people with unstable energy (pretty much just people who look under the influence). It’s inconvenient for sure in a downtown community and I want her to feel safe

We are can work on managing this in a similar way that we trained her out of dog reactivity, although it’s more difficult because we can’t manufacture these situations as easily “hey person smoking crack, can I ask you to please help me train my dog?”

My question is, would it be possible to train a react command even though she is already predisposed?

I want her to feel comfortable, but I would almost prefer to NOT train her out of this than train it out and not be able to control a reaction when I want it to happen

I’m a woman, living downtown in a sketchy city. I appreciate that she looks scary, but I want her to feel comfortable

I know this is likely not doable because her reaction comes from fear and instability. If I help her feel safer and more confident in this situation can I ask her to do this on command?

To be CLEAR. I am not asking to train her in bite work. I would NOT do this without the help and guidance of a professional trainer. BEFORE taking any steps I would like the most opinions I can collect, including contacting trainers as I am now. I would not do this alone, I would likely have a trainer train her all the way through the process rather than doing it myself because it’s a delicate situation. I just want to know if it’s a possibility

I want her happy, but I also want both of us to be safe. Her fear is not misplaced and neither is mine