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possessive behavior toward toys and people


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So puppy Daisy has some issues with our other two family dogs when it comes to sharing toys. She makes a beeline to the dog with ANY toy and takes it. If the other dog stands up to her, things quickly escalate to aggression from both dogs and becomes unsafe to remove the toy. In the end, Daisy always seems to win the toy. What is the best way to handle this situation to try to communicate to Daisy that this is not acceptable behavior? She seems to respond best when I remove her from the room and give her a "time out". It make take her two or three times to get her settled down, but she does settle down. The only problem is the other dogs don't even want to touch the toys at that point. Holding her back when I see her giving the eye to the other dog while the other dogs are playing with the toys only makes the situation worse and she becomes more set on taking that toy.

 

The other issue is possessiveness of people. Although this one seems to be getting better. So far, any time Daisy does this, I remove myself from the sofa and ignore her. As soon as I do this, she stops right away once she realizes I am no longer there. Should I be doing anything else for this?

 

Daisy shows no other possessive behaviors toward me. I take her toys, her food, anything and everything. My family is also able to take everything from her.

 

Oh this is so frustrating because I feel so lost with this issue. I just know I am doing something wrong. :rolleyes:

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The other issue is possessiveness of people. Although this one seems to be getting better. So far, any time Daisy does this, I remove myself from the sofa and ignore her. As soon as I do this, she stops right away once she realizes I am no longer there. Should I be doing anything else for this?

 

This is ok but it might be in-the-moment management that will require lifelong corrections as opposed to teaching her permanent behavior modification. It might work, but to make sure she figures it out on her own, when she does this, I'd begin ignoring her and focusing on the other animal loudly. She also needs a "time out" command that you can send HER away. I did this for my dog Vala (re: cats, she was guarding from me, and what I'd do is send her to time out and praise and pet the cat loudly behind the closed bathroom door, her timeout area--at first she barked, which I ignored) now she doesn't do it anymore. You can do a search on resource guarding people against other dogs or variants to find out more about this.

 

For the resource guarding toys/treats v. dogs see Jean Donaldsons MINE. Also you can run a search on this. Super common topic.

 

Happy news, though, that your pup doesn't resource guard v. people! That problem REALLY BITES.

 

ETA: No pun intended.

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This is ok but it might be in-the-moment management that will require lifelong corrections as opposed to teaching her permanent behavior modification. It might work, but to make sure she figures it out on her own, when she does this, I'd begin ignoring her and focusing on the other animal loudly. She also needs a "time out" command that you can send HER away. I did this for my dog Vala (re: cats, she was guarding from me, and what I'd do is send her to time out and praise and pet the cat loudly behind the closed bathroom door, her timeout area--at first she barked, which I ignored) now she doesn't do it anymore. You can do a search on resource guarding people against other dogs or variants to find out more about this.

 

For the resource guarding toys/treats v. dogs see Jean Donaldsons MINE. Also you can run a search on this. Super common topic.

 

Happy news, though, that your pup doesn't resource guard v. people! That problem REALLY BITES.

 

ETA: No pun intended.

 

Thanks so much for the reply. I will try what you suggested. In regard to the resource guarding of toys. I tried doing a google search before posting, but everything seems to be more geared toward resource guard v. people. I will try a search again. Maybe I was not wording it right.

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I might have to pick that book up. I saw a little "he's mine!" going on tonight. It wasn't anything to bad just a small growl and a stare. But I didn't want it to go to far so I put them to bed.

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  • 10 years later...

Two things 1) one of our daughters has moved back in with her partner and Border Collie which is a sweet dog but is in my opinion overly needy with human contact plays well with my 10 month old GSD, except when she can't best him which is all the time she either sooks, bites or gets snappy, the concern here is my GSD is not likely to take this forever and he does push back as you would expect from a GSD male or female, my concern is when she goes ballistic there will come a time he may just wipe the backyard with her.

2) My daughter is pregnant and due soon, the issue is the possessive issue it concerns me particularly as the I don't believe they have socialised the dog with children she may show aggression to her child with regard to jealousy and possessiveness issues, the GSD no problem he already has been introduced to kids babies and people of all ages his issue will be containment of enthusiasm.

Question am I being over concerned, when its not your dog well its harder to accept issues because it's not really your right to control them, and she is more dog than they can control in my opinion as they feed and pat and rarely really put the effort in training, she is nearly 2 years and my opinion at that age she should be like a remote control.

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