Aggressive Rescue Dog

Good morning y’all. My husband and I adopted a rescue dog 3 months ago. She’s 7 months old, part Australian Cattle and we think Rat Terrier. When we first received her she was very sad and not playful. We understood and wanted to help bring her out of her shell and make her happy. She has come a long way and is very playful and goofy. We love her and although she still has issues, we are conflicted.

We believe she was abused either at the shelter or by previous owner and that it was by males.

The reason we believe this is because she is aggressive towards my husband. My husband looks like a big dude with a beard but he is the kindest person I’ve ever known. He has tried to use a soft tone of voice when trying to engage or play with her and she does fine with him but will randomly get triggered and will start to growl and bark at him. It has really started to depress him because we don’t know how to make her love him back and don’t try to force her either. He spends more time with her than anyone.

She doesn’t have any issues with me or my mother. My husband and I were bathing her in the backyard last night and she got ‘triggered’ when he grabbed the water hose, jumped and growled and attacked him. She bit his hand which made him fall and she tried to bite his face 3 times as he was on the ground. It was shocking. I’ve never experienced a dog like this before.

She has bit him before while we tried to walk her. We are trying to leash train her. She freaked out when she saw a man jogging and came loose from her harness and tried to sprint home. My husband tried to catch her and she turned to charge and bite his arm.

I also want to mention we have two rescue cats and they get along fine.

We need help figuring out what to do as we will be starting a family soon and I’m very worried.

Do we give her up to a shelter? Is there anything else we can do? We are so saddened and conflicted.

Thank you for any guidance.