Agressive Biting

Question
We first got our son Bear last year for christmas.  He was only four weeks old when we recieved him becuase the mother wasn't feeding her pups.  We bought bottle food and bottle fed him until he was about 7 weeks old and we have had him almost a year now.  He was supposed to be a long hair chihuahua, but he  appears to be some kind of a chihuahua mix.  On November 15 our gradeners left the gate to our back yard open and he got out, ran to the street and was hit by a car.  Unbelievably he survived and has almost completely overcome all of his injuries.  However, since his accident he has become very aggressive, he bit the vetrinarian when she was trying to examine his hip, and has bit both my fiance and I.  Both times we were bit we were around his mouth area and he without warning bit our fingers.  He has always had a thing about people around his food, but he never bit anyone. Now if we even go near him when he is eating, or go near his mouth he tries to bite us.  It is very difficult for us also because he has had a biting or gnawing problem since he was a puppy where he likes to play bite on our hands and we have had a realy hard time breaking that habbit. Now he is really biting us and we don't know what to do!  I will admit we probably have not had the best training methods and have resorted to hitting in some cases when he really bites or gets aggressive and though we know it doesn't help the situation, we are utterly at a loss.  He knows it is wrong because he always hides as soon as he bites putting his ears down and his tail between his legs, and then returns kissing us and trying to apologize.  Please if there is anyway for you to help we would truly appriciate it.  We are afraid he has been traumatized from his accident and just want our old son back.  Thank you so much.

Jarred

Answer
Hi Jarred;
The looking ashamed and coming back to apologize makes me thing the biting is more of a knee jerk reaction, rather than anger.
Dogs can have nervous breakdowns too, and this may be what happened to him.
That was a traumatic experience for him. He probably doesn't realize exactly what happened, just that he was hurt very badly.
I would suggest an obedience training class, but I also recommend massage.
Dogs have different anatomies so they way and where they are rubbed has to be right.
Go to this site and read about what the massages can be used for, and you can order a video on that site.
I have used the Tellington-Touch for years, to calm fears, break from bad habits like excessive barking, biting etc.

    www.lindatellington-jones.com

An obedience class to teach him what he is and is not supposed to do, will take care of a lot. Petsmart and Petcvo stores have weekend classes.
The fee is very reasonable whan you consider you learn how to get your dog to behave the way you want it, and once you go through the course, you will know how to train any dogs you get in the future.
The massages should help him recover from the trauma, and giving a massage for calming just before training class, will maximize the results you get from the classes.
Charlotte