Reactive Dog Help

I’m writing this post in desperation for my beloved dog, Howdy.

Howdy is a 3 year old GSD mix who is my whole world. To make a long story short- he has struggled with anxiety and aggression from a very young age. When we first got him at around 8 weeks old- we knew something was off. He was scared of everything, would hide under furniture for long periods, had no bite inhibition, and hated being outside. We started puppy school for him at 16 weeks at a local school in hopes to “socialize” him more- this was the first of many strings of trainers.

His fear and anxiety turned to aggression as he got older- at around 6 months old he wouldn’t let anyone new around and it’s been that way since. He is very aggressive towards people and any new dog- he will bark, lunge, and would bite if he was allowed. We’ve muzzle trained, tried medication (tradadone and fluoxetine) and finally after many trainers began working with a CAAB.

We moved from an apartment to a house with a backyard to try to give him more space and have essentially moved from behavior modification training daily to management this past year. We thought we were at a place where we just live with a reactive dog and understand we can’t have people or friends over, but our saving grace was since Howdy was introduced to my parents young and began staying there during our trips at a young age he was comfortable staying there. That is until recently after not seeing my parents/their dogs for a few months he’s become aggressive towards their dogs and tried attacking them.

Essentially, our world with him is very small and we live daily with anxiety of him trying to attack others or other animals. We’ve avoided it for a while because of the muzzle and just being safe/not letting him out ever unsupervised but my husband is in the military and will be gone for a year and the home we are renting is up for sale. The plan was to move in with them but now because of his recent aggression towards their dogs- im not sure what to do.

For some background on his aggression towards people- he accidentally bit my husband once while reacting at another dog, nipped me once while resource guarding, and randomly snapped on my sister in law and a friend of mine who were “safe” people of his who we don’t let him see anymore.

We’ve discussed BE in the past but have always said we wanted to give him the longest life possible but it feels like we are out of options. My anxiety is constant and if something happens to one of my parents dogs I will feel horrible. I never want us to be in the position of him biting someone or another animal and then not having a choice of putting him down. So both my husband and I feel like this is the end of the road because moving me into my parents house for this next year means I can no longer control his environment 100%. We’ve missed many outings, birthdays, special occasions - because we can’t risk him being around others and now we are thinking it’s the end of the road. I still can’t help but cry daily thinking about that actually happening- it makes me so nauseous but also I know that the only place he can exist safely is in isolation which also can’t be long term since he is only 3 years old.

I guess just looking for advice or if anyone can think of anything we haven’t already tried. We have gotten full blood work and scans done at his vet and everything has came back fine :/