We recectly found out that I am pregnant and two days ago one of our dogs figured this out and has begun attacking our other dog anytime she comes near me. What should we do?

Question

Ed,

    I came across you website while looking for answers to an issue with my 21 month old German Sheppard mix, Hannah. I read several articles and lots of Q&A's, but did not find an answer specific to my issue.

    We have three dogs, Brandy a 13 year old German Sheppard mix, Lucy a 5 year old lab mix, and Hannah. We adopted Hannah when she was 12 weeks old from a humane society in the area, and quickly began training classes with her. She's very well behaved, follows commands and has never tried to show dominance in any way to humans. The same goes for her relationship with Lucy. She is very obedient with any commands Lucy gives her (which normally consist of "Leave me alone I don't want to play now"). However, in the last few months we have experienced issues between Hannah and Brandy. The first time we weren't sure what the trigger was, but Hannah attacked Brandy with almost no warning. With the second incident we realized food was the trigger and began feeding them separately with no further issues.

    We recently found out that I am pregnant and two days ago Hannah apparently figured this out for herself. She has begun to attack Brandy again anytime she comes near me. When I am not around they get along great, we only have the issue when I am in the room with both dogs and this has never been an issue before.

    We have been keeping them separate for now, but this will not work as a long term solution during my entire pregnancy. What should we do?

    Thanks,
Rachael

Accepted Answer

Your pregnancy doesn't really have anything to do with the dog's behavior. Your lack of leadership is the trigger. You dog sees you as a possession (like the food) to guard from the other dog. this is extremely common behavior in dogs, and isn't linked to pregnancy at all. Add to that, the maturity of Hannah now. She's trying to act like a mature dog and assert herself in the family pack. I get a few emails a year from pregnant women who I believe think it's some kind of protective instinct the dog is showing when it's really dominance. Your behavior may be different since you became pregnant, so that may be sending some signals to the dog that you are "weak." Dogs instinctually try to be dominant or possessive over someone with weaker or less assertive energy. The fact that these dogs have recently started fighting for other resources tells me it's a progression of behavior that been left unchecked.

If you spend some time reading this section on dog fights, you’ll see that your problems are very common. I’ve received 6 or 7 emails just today from dog owners with very similar problems. If you don’t teach the dogs your rules, they can’t possibly behave how you want them to.

I'd keep the dogs separate for now, while you establish some CLEAR leadership and rules. Start with our groundwork program and Pack Structure for the Family Pet. This simple restructuring may be enough, but you may also want to view Dealing with Dominant & Aggressive Dogs.

You definitely want to have this all ironed out before the baby arrives. We also have a section on babies and dogs. Once the baby is here, you will have much less time and energy for training so you want to have solid rules and structure in place and things running smoothly.

I hope this helps.

Cindy Rhodes