Hey all,

First post here. I couldn't find any info directly related to my situation. I have a 3/4 husky 1/4 German Shepherd mix and he just turned 1 yesterday.

We were on a walk yesterday and, as he is still a youngster, he was pulling on the leash pretty bad. I often make him sit and be still for a bit when the pulling gets bad, so while he was sitting he was starting to whine pretty loudly. When this happens I usually get on one knee and look him in the eye. It seems that when there's eye contact he quits being such a punk =]

But what happened this time was so strange. I put my hand on his face to turn him toward me (not aggressively at all) and he starting all out SCREAMING. Worse than he did when he was being crate trained. He has never done anything even close to this. I couldn't get him to stop so I just held him there in the street.. finally it settled down a little bit so we started walking back home. I thought that I maybe stepped on a paw or caused him to bite his tongue but there are 0 signs of injury. But once we were in the house he was shaking terribly and it's pretty obvious that he is extremely scared of me now. His ears are down when he sees me, tail gets tucked away, and he avoids eye contact.

So I thought I was making progress yesterday by playing with him and praising him a ton. We went out on another walk and everything was fine. This morning he was curled up on the couch and I was petting him. I started petting his face a bit and it happened again! Not at all to the same degree, just a little burst of a scream and then he ran away.

I am not doing anything I haven't done a million times before. I always pet around his face. Any ideas as to why all of a sudden this seems to be making him so scared of me? And also, any tips on getting him to know that I'm not trying to hurt him?

Bad tooth? An unseen injury?

He found out he can make you go away when he doesn't want to be bothered?

I think I would stay away from his face for a while and see if things return to normal.

I would probably take him to the vet. Honestly, it sounds like he's in a lot of pain, or is at least sensitive around his face/muzzle area. Another thing to consider, is that they could be seizures. Unfortunately, he is right around the age of onset for hereditary epilepsy.

I second what Jenny said, definitely go to the vet. I would also make a record of every time this happens to keep track of the circumstances surrounding it. It sounds to me more like he's got some sort of hidden injury, but it very well could be some sort of partial seizure. If you have any questions on seizures and whatnot, feel free to hit me up. I'm unfortunately pretty knowledgeable on the subject.