Resource guarding the owner

[kelpiegirl]

I have had this issue for some time now with one of my dogs. She is really a lovely dog, except that she will get into it with my other female dogs if she feelsl like they are pushing too close. I need to grab this bull by the horns so to speak. I just can't have this continue. 99% of the time everything is fine, but there is that 1% that I need to stop. If any of you have had this issue, please let me know what you did, how you did it, to break this- in other words, teach the offender that she doesn't OWN me. Details, I need details!

TIA!

[Alaska]

She needs to learn that behavior is counter-productive for her, i.e. that it always results in your attention being immediately taken away from her (detail: by taking your hands off her, pushing her away, not speaking to her, putting her into a crate or another room behind a closed door, etc.) and given to the other dog (detail: by lavishing praise, super good treats, etc. on the other dog, or by immediately taking other dog outside to do something fun). Ideally, she should be able to tell that the other dog is getting the good stuff (detail: even if she is behind a closed door, be very verbal about the good stuff you are showering on the other dog so she can hear what she's missing).

 

The key words are "aways" and "immediately". The better you can be about those two things, the faster she will catch on.

 

Caveat: don't allow the other dog(s) to take advantage of the situation though. They will quickly learn that when she has your attention they can capture it by coming up and challenging her for it. Any dog that tries to aggressively displace another that is getting your attention should receive the same treatment. Always. Immediately.

 

My junior dog would like to have me all to himself, but through this strategy he has learned that he cannot. He will still push himself in between me and my senior dog at times, but I never let him push the senior dog away. As long as he is just being pushy and not aggressive, I alternate between letting him share my attention with her and just ignoring him. (The senior dog is not the underdog - she wins 95% of their playfights. She just doesn't feel that strongly about my affections, so she doesn't care much if he shares as long as he's not nasty about it.)

 

When he tries this behavior with a new dog from outside our family, I do everything possible to get away from him - the harder he tries to wrap himself around me, the more I back off, hold my hands up in the air, focus my attention on talking to another human, or do whatever I can to indicate I have no interest in interacting with him. Detail: if I see any indication that he's considering "guarding" me from another dog's affections, I start this strategy in advance - by moving away from him - so that there isn't really anything for him to want to guard.

[Shetlander]

She needs to learn that behavior is counter-productive for her, i.e. that it always results in your attention being immediately taken away from her (detail: by taking your hands off her, pushing her away, not speaking to her, putting her into a crate or another room behind a closed door, etc.)

 

I don't think it can be summed up any better than that. Both Quinn and my Lhasa will resource guard people and between the two knuckleheads, it's been quite an uphill battle to quell the behavior. Quinn is super sneaky and the Lhasa super persistent. So corrections are still needed from time to time and I make a big effort to be vigilant of the dynamics. A few nights ago both of them were rudely pushed off the bed for growling at each other. I have no idea and don't care who "started it." That behavior receives an automatic correction. As per their natures, the Lhasa recovered sooner to give it another (successful this time) try. Quinn sulked until sometime after I fell asleep. I don't care about that either. I fall asleep better knowing a bloody battle isn't brewing because of tensions I allowed to grow.

 

My zero tolerance policy was formed by another pair of knuckleheads many years back -- one of which was also a Lhasa -- which ended very, very badly. My stance now is that I alone am the leader of this little pack and I alone get to say where another dog may go or be, and what it may do or have. Any dog who assumes differently is not respecting my leadership and will be corrected. I am not someone who looks at everything with dogs in terms of dominance or being Alpha, but I'm quite rigid on this issue.