Possessive dog?

[gsdlover4ever]

How would you deal with a dog that is possessive over you?

It’s not Zara my GSD, but one of my mums westies... ever since her last season which finished a few months ago.... she has began growling when ever another dog comes near me... although she doesn't do it to Zara. But she will do it with my mum’s other westie.

She is 18 months old; I can do almost anything to her, without a problem. She will happily stand to get examined, nails clipped, hair clipped etc...

I took both westies to agility last night; normally I take one dog at a time. One dog was tethered and I would swap them over after each shot. They were fantastic.

But things drastically changed... to cut a long story short: both westies started fighting, more noise and anything else...

Matty was like a dog possessed, constantly growling at any dog that came near me...
But as soon as I was removed from the picture all was fine.
About 5 minutes later both dogs were happily sitting next to me quiet... Everybody was shocked that I was even able to walk them without a problem.

They do have little spats like this now and again, but never outside in a public place.

I don't live with my mum, haven't for a few years now. I don't see the girls often, but when I do I normally take them for a good run and do some training.

I just assumed it was a hormonal problem and her hormones would chill eventually....

[LOVEGSD]

I can only speak from experience with Oscar.....when we took him on he became very attached to me very quickly and he would growl at Diesel if Deez came over to me for a stroke etc. So if Oscar was sitting on or near me I would tell him 'off' and stand up so he had to get down, then I would call Diesel to me and continue fussing him. Oscar soon learnt that if he grumbled he'd be excluded and now we have no issue at all.

I praised Oscar every time he 'allowed' Diesel to be near me without any grumbling.

Our neighbour has a JRT who used to grumble at Diesel if I was stroking her, I just stopped stroking her, said 'ah ah' and the momentt she stopped she was rewarded with my attention again, this worked a now we have no issue when we see them.

Perhaps you need to step back a bit with the dog that's growling and show that only good calm behaviour will be rewarded with your time and attention, every time she growls you withdraw from her??

[Stuart]

This is what was happening with my last foster dog,.. I couldnt get anywhere near my three in the begining, the foster dog would growl and push in between my dogs and me.

So I did what Lynn did,.. Allison held the foster dog while he growled and only released him when is was quiet,..which was usually after I had finished petting mine.

In the end I could pet all four without hearing a growl,..although the foster did still pushed to get close to me,.. but I allowed this if it was done without the growl

[sami]

I had a similar thing with Max when we had Leo back. To be fair Max was always my dog and was everything bad about an obsessive separation anxiety ridden GSD and very insecure. He didnt growl at Leo but would come and push him out of the way and then Leo would growl.


I made a point of not fussing Max if he pushed Leo out of the way and "ah ah" to Leo for growling. It got better but if I am honest it never went away completely Leo just started coming to the side of my chair for a fuss rather than in front of me and Max didnt notice so much, but Max was very clingy and insecure.