First, thank you for rescuing her. Next. what you have is apowder keg wrapped up in a doxie body. Due to her past history she has alot of pent up frustrations and what you saw her do is called in people terms an anger induced black out. You are right, she was not there at all. It is a good thing this happened so soon after you got her. Im glad that nobody was seriously hurt. You will need to do alot to prevent this in the future. First things first. Get a muzzle. Not one of those little cloth things, but a true muzzle. Muzzle her when she is in the presence of Copper. If you dont feel comfortable muzzling her, keep her on a choke chain and a leash at all times. You can tie the leash your your pant belt loop. This not only insures you will have an immediate way to control the dog but it will help her bond with you.
Sadie should not be allowed on the furniture now, and if she is going to come up, she needs to be invited ONLY. Everyone in your family needs to start with training. She needs to be put on a stict routine. First thing in the morning a leash walk, the walk should be brisk, with her on a choke collar (not a harness) and she should not be allowed to lead, she should be at your side, no sniffing around, just walking for an hour. Then breakfast. She SHOULD be put in a sit and stay position and have to wait to be released before eating. She should not be fed first EVER. Not with treats not with food. She should be put into IMMIDATE basic training and training should be a positive training not negative. You will want to walk her for an hour BEFORE training in order to make things easier for you - a tired dog is easier to train) She needs to be taken to a dog park or a place where she can solicalize with other dogs. This is where you may see some issues so dont just let her go in unhook the leash and let her play. Take her for a walk BEFORE going into a dog park - she will be more tired and have less energy to fight. She needs to socialize with other dogs as much as possible with as many dogs as possible, and apply the nothing in life is free training, she NEEDS TO EARN EVERYTHING she gets. Even praise and pets should be earned and not freely given. Until you can get into training. Start doing it at home yourself, Sit, Stay, Down, Leave it. Remember to relax. it is going to be hard to trust her but hopefully this was a one time thing. It is hard to say why the attack started. That she was on a chair in a position of being physically higher than Cooper makes me think she is starting to feel more at ease in your home and is starting to display dominant behavior. This type of behavior MUST be shut down as soon as possible. She has demonstrated an ability to attack blcoking out everything around her. The fact that she was unable to disengage after being picked up by you is not good. It is not unworkable but it will take everyone in the house willing to maintain a dominante position over Sadie or she may attack again. She also needs intense socialization. The more dogs she meets, the more she will relaize she is not the boss of all of them. Her daily troutine should include at least 2 to 3 hour long walks a day. The walks should be brisk and controlled. She should always be at your side not sniffing around each bush or blade of grass. The important thing to remember is control control control. Keep that leash on her whenever she is outside her crate. Tie her to yourself and make her follow you where ever you go while you are doing your thing around the house. Get her a bed for the living room so she has a place you can direct her to when you are relaxing there - no couch visits. It takes perserverance but you will get it. Just be more determined than her. The leash on the belt loop thing worked for a friend who adopted a Tibetan Terrier. The dog was aloof and after being attached to my friend for the better part of a month the dog started bonding to her. Good luck. Please repost and let us know how it is going.

She has no idea what the rules of being a dog are. She had no puppyhood to speak of in which to learn those rules.

You need to be able to teach her those basic rules and provide the control she needs in order to learn how to be a dog.

What mazer outlined is a good basic outline of the things that need to be done.

My only addition is to learn her triggers for almost everything. Happy/mad, attack, play, etc. You can much more easily prevent the outbursts if you know before it happens. And dogs body language and experience in dealing with their actions allow you to see that.

You will need to cease being a buddy and feeling any sympathy for her for a while. What happened is past, the best you can do is make sure that sort of thing never happens again---which of course you want to do. She will sense the sympathy and it will hurt your effectiveness. Just remember she is now in a much better environment and you need to adapt her to it.

Be positive and confident when you make corrections and do training. Give affection after training. Require her obedience calmly, but with no leeway. She must obey. You do not need to spank or even touch her to accomplish this. You can do a much better job of that by body, voice and posture. It takes a while, but is actually faster in the long term.

What a scary thing to happen!! You have received excellent advice. I agree too, about not feeling sorry for her and don't baby her. She is a dog and you can work through this if you remember that and get her trained to listen to you. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.

You got excellent advice from Mazer. Good luck and thanks for rescuing Sadie. But why haven't you had the guy arrested on animal cruelty charges?

I am concerned that this is not a simple dominance, pent-up frustration issue that can be resolved by strict rules and training. There is a rare neurological condition called Rage Syndrome and your description of Sadie seems to match the description of dogs with this condition (link below). I would ask that your vet refer you to a neurologist who can properly assess Sadie and, if necessary, provide medication.

Good luck to you!

Thank you all so much for the advice.
Last night we had a great night with Sadie...she was her normal playful self...of course we are all more than a little gun shy of her.
I have an apt. with a vet to have a full medical "check up" on her. I called the vet yesterday and explained what happened and they asked us to come in and have her looked at. They are going to run some tests and do a brain scan to make sure she's alright.
The vet stated because her mouth is really misshapen that maybe there is more to it and maybe she's not fully developed.
I dont want to give up on her. She deserves the best life possible and we are committed to giving her that life. I am contact a dog trainer to come to the house once she gets an all clear from the vet to help us work on her anger issues.
Thanks again for the advice.

I'd be angry too if I suffered from the abuse she did. PTSS may play a part. Something triggers which reminds her of the abuse she had. Report that cretin to the Humane society.

There is so much that could be wrong with this dog. If the previous owner did in fact physically abuse the dog, It is possible he could have caused brain damage. He might have also dislocated her jaw - once she was attacking, her jaw could have been causing her pain she might have associated that pain with Cooper (she might have been thinking he was attacking her back) the pain might have continued when you picked her up which is why she continued to attack. It might have been behavioral or like already mentioned another medical issue. I know my Bull Mastiff well enough - he has had 3 surgeries on his rear legs, the first being done by an incompetent vet, on top of being attacked before his surgeries I know if he starts to play hard with another dog, and his leg starts hurting he will attribute the pain to being attacked by the dog he is playing with. I keep him on a short rein now, and supervise his play time carefully. I hope your pup is okay, and you all have a good long life. PS - The previous owner should be reported - tho you cant prove anything maybe an officer investigating him might stop him from further damaging any more animals.

You have been given a lot of information here. Having been in your shoes with one of our previous doxies, I can tell you that if you get an all clear on the medical side you then need to contact a behaviorist immediately. Even before that you need to get a basket muzzle and keep it on the dog at all times that it is out of its crate. A tip that we learned was to put peanut butter at the end of the muzzle so the dogs attention is on the peanut butter instead of getting the muzzle on. For now, this dog should never be allowed in public without the muzzle on. If your Vet does not refer you to a behaviorist, then find one yourself. I wish you the best of luck because you are going to need it.

This just seems odd that you took her in in December and this is the first time she's acted like this?
Something just doesnt seem right. I'd make sure she isn't hurting somewhere, her back or teeth would be the first thought.
She's been with you all for 5 months, I'd think she would have shown this before if its a "trait" of hers.

I'm not a professional, but just offering advice. We are a family of Doxie lovers and they are usually pretty mellow dogs.

I agree with all of the advice you have been given - and you are wonderful for having taken in this poor little angel. I have also been through this with a mini Dachshund - as described by momof2doxies - and it was horrible. One of our guys was an Alpha - very benevolent with his siblings - one being a Beta who was a month younger. All was going well, until one day post baths - and the Alpha was always done last - the Beta decided he wanted to be Alpha and went for the back of our Alpha's neck - in just the spot where our guy couldn't shrug him off - and we were having a heck of a time ourselves - threw a bucket of water finally. The screams were horrible. No reason for it to have happened. They had lived together for over 8 months. And as in your case, after it was over, the Beta just sat there wondering what was going on - whereas our Alpha was not pleased - but he would not hurt his brother - something said brother was quick to learn. I think he did suffer from Rage Syndrome. My husband went out of town 2 days later for a week, thinking there would never be peace again - and we had another Dachshund as well - very mild-mannered, plus 2 cats - and no one was happy with the instigator. During the week, the little devil behaved himself and our pack leader forgave him and when my husband came home, he was amazed. Then out of the blue it happened again - and this time my husband to grab the innocent party without showing him it was Daddy trying to help him - bad mistake - and he was almost bitten - and then he yelled and screamed at my guy and scared the heck out of him. Our Alpha ran to me - and it was a good month before he started to trust my husband again. After all, he though he was being attacked at both ends. We did have a full medical - no health issues. We bought a Graco play pen and put the instigator in it for periods of time and he sat happily in it - lots of room and he knew for certain that our Alpha wouldn't go after him. Then our Alpha required a minor surgical procedure that required he be kept away from the other pets so we put him in the play pen - ALONE - and within 2 minutes the Beta had him by the ear, trying to pull him through the webbing - he had been watching or our guy to go near the edge of the playpen which he did almost immediately because he did not intend to stay in it. My guy was screaming, blood was pouring out. A nightmare. So a friend of mine who had Dachshunds and in fact had placed some with us, offered to babysit him for a couple of days to give my guy a break and see how he acted. He wasn't at her house more than 1/2 an hour before he went after one of her Dachshunds. His eyes were a deep chocolate brown - with very little white pupil showing - and they would turn "strange" just before he attacked. Looking at him you would think he was the sweetest dog in the world - and he was when he wasn't going nuts. We put up with this for a number of years and absolutely never left the dogs loose together in the room - were too terrified. Finally he climbed out of the play pen and went for one of the cats. Enough. We took him to the vet and she came outside and gave him just a tranquilizer shot to allow him to doze off and then we took him in and had him put to sleep. My friend whose dog he attacked had never seen anything like it and frankly I am grateful that she and her husband witnessed it. Heck, he attacked a Dachshund in the waiting room of the vets. We did go to obedience, even tried him on Prozac, but finally we had to make the decision - it was causing a lot of stress for our other pets. We always treated each dog the same way, never expressing favouritism - although of course we often have our favourites - it our case it was in fact the Alpha in question - and our very first Dachshund who was SUPER! Alpha - but benevolent who also was a very good pack leader. Both of these guys had worst back/neck disc disease and the surgeries - the others did not. We have had 5 Dachshunds in all - but now have an Eskimo - just couldn't go through the surgery again - or put the Dachshund through it. I get my Dachshund fix on the street. I really hope that your vet can find a reason for Sadie's behaviour, but bear in mind that you might have to do the unthinkable. Fortunately this dog did not try to bite us. Some dogs - just like some people - are off. I really hope that is not the case with Sadie - she was dealt a terrible blow by being adopted by her original family and may indeed have suffered brain damage. I really hope she will live a long and loving life with Cooper and your family. I will never get over not having a Dachshund.