6 month old pup showing food aggression after new dog...

[Sue R]

I am in full agreement with those who have said that your pup should not be taken where he will be in the presence of your step-dad. If you simply can't avoid that, then keep him on a short leash and at your side at all times. In the meantime, also work on teaching your dog "look at me", learning to focus on you and not on other distractions, in an effort to help him concentrate on you rather than others.

 

Wishing you the very best in a very difficult situation. And, if your mother will not support you in protecting your pup and told you to go, if I were you, I'd choose that option rather than expose the pup (for whom you are responsible) to a bullying step-father who seems to choose to create a situation and then bully the pup, from your description.

[SutterBC25]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I will look up the "Look At Me" right away and start working on it!

I take my dog with me because lately it's been really hot out and it's much cooler at my mom's. He loves going there and loves seeing my mom and he has fun. I hate the idea of leaving him at home in his kennel (outside) and he's never been fully locked up in his crate in the house. I do plan to work on that, so we could leave him in the crate while we're gone and he'll be in the AC. I would just much rather he be involved in outings, as that was a main reason for getting a dog, so he could tag along on all of our trips.

 

I have not left my dog alone with my step-dad at all, and definitely will not anytime soon!
Unfortunately my version of confrontational involves me bursting into tears, which doesn't at all help with trying to get my point across!!

We're working with him on so many issues right now and I'm just extremely stressed with all of it. I feel like I need to invest in a muzzle for him.

[Hooper]

You probably don't need to invest in a muzzle for Sutter if you use a piece of equipment you already own - a crate - appropriately. I appreciate that you want your dog to be your buddy who is gets to go on excursions with you, but first he has to be given a chance to grow up and develop confidence in a safe environment. Someone up thread stated that Sutter will bite your step-father, and my only disagreement with that is that it's a race to see whether he bites your step-father or your niece first. Either way, once that happens the only excursion Sutter will be going on with you is a one-way trip that will end very very sadly. So, keep him feeling safe and secure now, so that he gets the chance to grow up to be the companion you want him to be.

 

Sutter is not barking and snapping because he's aggressive. He may or may not be resource guarding, but mainly he's just plain scared, and he's learning from your step-father that his fear is justified, and he's learning from his encounters with both your step-father and your niece that he's on his own to protect himself because he can't depend on you to protect him. Putting a muzzle on him so he now loses his last line of self defense is only going to make the fundamental underlying problem worse.

 

EVERY time your niece is around, Sutter needs to be safely crated, preferably in a separate room behind a closed door. Your niece is three. Being unpredictable and scary to sensitive dogs is part of a three year old's job description, and she's fulfilling her job wonderfully by screaming and waving her arms and otherwise making a fuss when she's within sight of Sutter. Sutter is trying his best to avoid the situation, but if he's tied up, or only separated by a flimsy barrier, he can't get away from her, so his only option is to try to scare her away by barking, snapping, growling, whatever he can. This of course frightens your niece who then does her best to protect herself (scream and run), and the situation only escalates. Every time there is an interaction, Sutter and your niece are both having their fear and distrust reinforced, and that's not good for either one of them. So, prevent them from interacting. Period. No excuses. Put on your Nikes and just do it.

 

And everything I said above goes a thousand times over for preventing interactions with your step-father. Given the opportunity, your step-father will continue to provoke Sutter until Sutter bites him, and then he will make sure, one way or another, that Sutter is executed. It's not fair, but there's no point in worrying about fairness here. You can't control your step-father's behavior, so your only recourse is to keep Sutter away from him at all times. When your step father comes to your house, Sutter goes in a crate, in another room, behind a closed (and ideally locked) door. And Sutter should no more be going to your step-father's house for a nice little visit than a child should be going to visit a pedophile.

 

I'm sorry if my post sounds harsh. I don't mean to blame you or your niece for this situation. You clearly want to do what is best for your dog, and your niece is just being a three year old. But you seem to keep thinking there is something that you need to fix about Sutter. He does have issues that need to be worked on, but really, from what you've said, he sounds like he's just a fairly typical 6 month old dog who is somewhat lacking in trust, and is unfortunately rapidly learning that his distrust is well placed. The first thing that needs to be fixed is that he needs to be able to depend absolutely on you to provided a safe environment (safe from his point of view, which means no scary unpredictable small creatures running around screaming and waving arms and hovering over him while he's confined with no way to escape) so that his fears aren't reinforced. He'll survive, and even benefit from, chilling out in a crate with something nice and safe to chew on. He won't survive defensively biting someone who frightens him.

 

You said that you have Sutter enrolled in puppy classes, and so hopefully those will be starting very soon. Hopefully these are classes taught by someone with lots of experience with positive approaches to helping young dogs develop quiet confidence. Let your instructor know ahead of time that you are having these issues. It's hard over the internet to explain how to desensitize dogs to scary stimuli. An experienced person who can observe you and your dog, and set up some training situations for you, and show you what to look for is worth a thousand posts from people who aren't there to say - "There, see that? That's what you need to watch for, and here's what you need to do." And be prepared for the possibility that training classes may be too overwhelming for Sutter. They may or may not be. But if they are, ask about options for one-on-one training. Everything you've written about Sutter so far sounds to me like he just needs a little help gaining confidence and trust. But you need guidance on how to best provide that for him, and investing some time and money in that now will save you from a much more intractable and potentially heart breaking problem later.

[RemsMom]

Unfortunately my version of confrontational involves me bursting into tears, which doesn't at all help with trying to get my point across!!

 

 

Deleted.

[gcv-border]

I second Hooper's excellent post above. (Post #28)

[SutterBC25]

Thank you for the informative post, Hooper.

 

The puppy classes start on the 17th of this month - they're mostly classes for teaching obedience, handling puppy biting, and then STAR puppy certification at the end. I don't think any of it will be too really behaviour based. The instructor offers in home private lessons, but until I'm working again, those will have to wait as 2 lessons is the same price as 6 weeks of puppy classes, so it'll get spendy fast.

I just wanted to update on what I just had happen. I was outside with Sutter and he was near his food bowl. I put my hand in it as he's always been fine with this - until now. :/ He growled and I immediately removed my hand. He turned on me and jumped up trying to get me. I pulled him inside, away from ANY food, and he was still acting out, growling, snapping, and trying to get me.

I am starting to become fearful of him. I fear that I will have to make a decision I do not wish to make, but I cannot have a dog who is so aggressive. I know it's because of his lack of trust, but when he won't even let me work on his issues (I was trying to drop yummy pieces of food into his bowl and he wouldn't even let me NEAR it without threatening me) I don't know how I can help him.

I think I should resort to completely feeding him from my hands. Then he'll realize if he's hungry and wants to eat, he has to come to me. From there I'll go on to only letting him eat out of a bowl when I say it's OK, and he must relinquish it when I ask. Does this sound like a good idea?

I feel like I'm failing him and it's the worst feeling in the world. I don't want to exhaust any options, I want to work through everything with him, but he is almost unpredictable now. He is a completely different dog than he was 3 1/2 months ago, even. It's disheartening.

[SutterBC25]

This says it all.

 

How insenstive RemsMom. Don't you think I would rather be able to confront someone in a manner that DOESN'T involve crying? I cannot help my emotions in confrontational situations. Everyone handles them differently, and I am envious of those who can hold their composure and come out on the strong side of a conversation when necessary.

[Maralynn]

I think Remsmom was pointing out how stressful the situation is. If something makes you cry, it's not a good situation for you or your dog to be in. I highly doubt it was meant to be negative toward your response.

 

 

FWIW, I'd quit messing with his food. I'd ask for a sit, put the food down, release him and then leave him alone to eat. I highly doubt your pup is truly aggressive. Rather, he sounds stressed to the max and sticking a hand in his food just adds to the stress. Let him live stress free, reward what you want, prevent others from stressing him.

[Hooper]

A month in a puppy's life is roughly equivalent to a year (I'd say more like a year and a half) in a human's life. So when you say that Sutter is a different dog now than he was even 3 1/2 months ago, that's like saying a 6-9 year old child is very different than he was when he was 2 1/2 years old. He's approaching the same level of maturity as that at which human children begin to practice all sorts of new and often undesirable behavior. With some luck and guidance adolescents come out the other end of this phase as productive well-adjusted young adults. But they are never going to be like they were as cute adorable toddlers again.

 

Honestly, I think you are at the point where you need to work with someone who can actually watch Sutter and you and how the two of you interact. There's only so much advice that anyone can give you over the internet when they can't see you or your dog and observe body language and the larger environment in which the two of you are interacting. The only advice I can give you without actually seeing your and what all is going on around him when he becomes defensive is to stop putting him in situations where he feels he has to defend himself. You can't keep him in a bubble his entire life, so you do need to work through his defensiveness/reactivity/possibly resource guarding, but this has to be a much more gradual process than you seem to realize. You clearly want to do what is right for this dog. I hope you get some good guidance from your puppy classes, but if those don't help, please do consider some follow-up one on one training.

[gcv-border]

Although his behavior seems to be based on the experiences he has had and a lack of confidence, I would also get his thyroid levels checked. Low thyroid dogs can be aggressive.

 

I agree with Maralynn's suggestion for feeding meals. I wouldn't feed him completely from your hands as you suggested above. I would maintain distance until he is more comfortable that he doesn't have to protect his food. If you want to give him yummy treats while he is eating, start by throwing them at him from a distance. Don't get close to drop them in his bowl.

 

My pup is a little stressed when he eats so I don't push his envelope. He has never growled at me, but he does have a tense posture when he is eating. Even if I dropped ground burger on the floor near his bowl, he was so intent on eating his meal that he wouldn't stop to investigate the burger - this was in the beginning. I just kept throwing burger every once in a while and he finally (after a couple of weeks) realized that he could lift his face out of the food bowl to investigate the yummy treat on the floor. We have progressed to where I can now place the burger directly in his bowl without him stressing out.

[mbc1963]

I don't have much advice... but wanted to jump in and strongly agree with the recommendations of a private trainer. If possible, look for one who has some experience with adolescent behaviors like snapping and growling and food possessiveness.

 

I was lucky enough to call the trainer my vet recommended, who happened to be very knowledgable about what was going on with my old dog. Talking to a person who really, really understood my dog's triggers and how to manage them gave me confidence that I needed. I think I paid for a couple "training walks," where the trainer and I could see the dog in real-world situations (dogs approaching, people talking loudly, bicycles), and this helped immensely - more than the typical puppy classes could. With multiple dogs in an obedience setting, focus is divided and is on relatively "simple" things like the sit and the heel.

 

When I read about the way your stepfather acts, I see an adult whose behaviors have a negative impact on another adult (you) but who doesn't change his behavior. It is VERY, VERY hard to change the dynamics in a family; you are definitely in the "child" role, and he is in the "adult" role, and good luck with the transition to co-adults. (My 90-year-old father tried to give me directions to get around my own neighborhood the other day. I have lived here for 12 years, and grew up one town over. But Dad was my driver ed teacher in 1979, and has never really left that role behind!)

 

It seems as though your stepfather is trying to fill the void created by your simply not knowing what to do. After you work with a trainer and get some confidence in what you are doing - after you have a solid plan - THEN you can logically explain why you want to do X with the dog instead of Y. "I am not going to push the dog to be even more stressed in this situation than he already is. He can't learn when he's stressed. So, I'm only going to bring him around when my niece isn't here. I need to be in charge of managing his behavior, and he needs consistent, predictable responses to different actions, so I will be the one giving corrections. Here is what I'm going to do."

 

I think you can work this out. I think you need an expert eye to help you. It's no shame! Heck, I'm bringing a new dog home in the next few weeks, and I'm going to call my old trainer ASAP and go to the local park with him just to get a very experienced eye on the situation. I was an expert at my old dog, but this new dog will be a complete stranger, with new issues and quirks. I am willing to pay good money to have a smarter person than me zoom in on the situation!

 

Keep us updated!

 

Mary

 

(P.S.: I am someone who has also been known to cry when very frustrated or stressed. I like to think of it as my being over threshold, the way my dog used to be. If I get a great deal of sleep and have enough time alone to process stuff, and if my boss isn't unreasonable and things are generally fair, and my old dog isn't sick, my friends aren't snippy at me because they are also at the end of their ropes, I don't cry. But - life isn't always so nice, is it? And let's throw the adolescent-level hormone shifts of menopause into the equation, shall we?!)