Family dog is aggressive towards strangers
Hi, my family (20m) rescued a ridgeback puppy about 1.5 years ago but the DNA test showed he is in fact majority catahoula with pit and coonhound and boxer relatively distributed.
He was somewhat socialized with strangers and other dogs when young but over time he became pretty wary of strangers, I’m assuming because my mom is Muslim and when she would bring Muslim people over she would keep my puppy downstairs in the finished basement which would distress him greatly because he wanted to see the people. Now that he’s an adult(nearly 2) he has attacked a teenage boy that came over for no reason, the boy is athletic and tall which my sister told me that previously he had been wary of her friends that were tall males. I was watching the whole exchange and he went over to the boy while he was sitting as if to be pet and then after being pet a few times a repeatedly lunged and bit the boy. He is not biting with force but the behavior is still upsetting and obviously aggressive. He did the same later to a drunk friend that took a piece of trash from him, I repeatedly warned him to leave it alone and I was going to handle it because my dog is not aggressive with my family at all, but he was fucked up and didn’t listen and overly trusted my dog since my dog really warmed up to him and was Velcro’d to him for most of the hang out. So right after he got the trash and went back to hug my dog he lunged again like with the boy and very obviously bit him but weirdly enough again with not any force, it both instances neither boys thought they were bit at all and there were no marks but I saw my dog “bite” them. He did scratch my friends face and immediately I seperated them and made him go upstairs and he immediately showed me his belly (I didn’t yell or strike him, he has decent recall) and avoided my friend for the rest of the time he was there.
The final straw for me is when he snapped at a neighborhood child who was petting him, the boy is moderately autistic and it seemed it was going well at first but when he moved to the side of my dog towards my dad while petting him my dog freaked out. He didn’t get bit but he easily could’ve.
He is super sweet and cuddly with the family, and is a whiny, needy, baby in a good way that listen well and gets a decent amount of stimulation and exercise when weather permits. But he hasn’t had formal training nor is he fixed, it’s technically my dads dog but he doesn’t want to find the money to get training, and he wants to get him fixed too but again, no money because we fell on some harder times lately like a lot of folks.
I wrote a lot here and I’m sorry but TLDR; what can I do about a dangerous, aggressive to strangers dog who my family wasn’t prepared to deal with. I love him and he is so sweet but in my heart of hearts I know that without some sort of attempt there is a high chance he might hurt someone.