Tripawds Three Legged Dog & Cat Forum Archives

It sounds as if she is resource guarding you. Are you certain they get along when no one is home, or do you just assume so because no one is hurt? They might still get in scraps while you're gone if you think toys and such could be an issue. 

Best thing to do is to take away anything you think might cause conflict. Food dishes, toys, etc. just to be safe. Also, the more opportunity she has to guard things, the more she'll do it and it will be harder to break.

As far as resource guarding YOU, Comet's mom is right. Ignore the bad, reward the good. If you're petting her and she growls/shows teeth, stop immediately and redirect your attention. When she's behaving praise her and give treats. Food helps mitigate these situations quite well – if she learns anytime the other dog(s) are around the both of you, yummy and fun things happen, she'll stop seeing them as a threat.

It's also about management.  Right now do your best to prevent negative interactions when you can't spend time working on it with them. If you know you only have two minutes to spare to let her out and what not – do what you can to set things up so she doesn't have the opportunity to have a negative interaction with you or the other dog. It's kind of like potty training in that sense – the less chances they have to pee on the floor, the easier and more successful housetraining will be. 

 DO NOT punish any aggressive displays of behavior. These are her warning signals that if she is pushed too far, she will snap. When you punish the behavior (startling, yelling, whatever) to her, you're punishing her warning. Then you can end up with a dog who gives no warnings before she snaps. They aren't as complex in their thought patterns (I don't know if that's the right word!) We want to discourage the behavior and the reason they're doing it. To them we're just discouraging the behavior but not effectively dealing with WHY they have that behavior. It's like anything – dog's who are destructive are often bored – we can punish them for chewing and it might work, but if we don't do something to solve the boredom, it's likely they'll redirect their energies onto something else we don't like. She might go from growling to nipping instead. 

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