We have two dogs in our household - Roxie (about 4 yrs old) who is a pitbull mix. Nickie is a little over 2 yrs old & is a pitbull/bullmastiff mix. They are home all day with my hubby while I am at work. They are crate trained and in general are fairly well behaved in the house.

Yesterday while hubby was watching TV and Nickie was laying quietly on the floor in the living room, Roxie started with a very low growl. She was in the same room, I think sitting near my husband. He told me that this happened a couple of times last week and he didn't know what to make of it since no one was near her. I told him that if it happened again to stand up from his chair and tell her "NO" in a stern voice. He did that, sat down, and she growled low again. This time he told her "NO" and made her go in her crate in the other room.

I am thinking that we need to work on pack structure - he says that he has never ever had a dog that acted this way (he has had many dogs in his lifetime but he agreed that they were all pretty docile compared to these two). However, he tends to put "human" feelings to our two dogs. When he is watching TV they will both approach him and sit expectantly at his feet (not pawing or acting obnoxious). Then he will pet both of them at the same time, trying to give each of them an equal amount of "love".

Bottom line - in my opinion our dogs may "love" us but they do not respect us. This morning I have been reading a lot on establishing pack structure and the email questions and answers. I hope this is something we can fix because for the first time he has said to me that he will not have a dog in our household that he is fearful of.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this "low growling" that Roxie is doing now?

Hi Diane

First of all, a question. Are you absolutely CERTAIN Roxie is growling?

I ask because I had a similar problem with my 65 lb strong, big, muscular Catahoula. He would sit in his crate, look me straight in the eye, and low growl. Very disconcerting and I didn't know the dog that well to boot. Since he was already in his crate, all I could do was leap up and snarl NO at him.

However, in other ways he was submissive to me. He would allow me to stand over him and brush him and clip his nails, pet his belly, and constantly look at me while doing anything as though to ask if he was doing it right. The low growling directed at me was rather out of character.

After about 4 times I eventually figured out he wasn't growling. He was "talking". Muttering, more like. What he actually wanted was for me to get off the couch and pay attention to him ("mom, my toy fell out of my crate", "I am out of water", "I have to go pee").

The first tip was that he never made that sound if he was able to come up to me and poke me, or more enthusiastically bark and mutter at me, only when he was in his crate and it was his only means of communication (he never barked or whined in his crate, so to him, a low growly noise was being polite - like a human clearing his throat).

My boy is a vocal dog and will ask with barks and mumblings if it is time for supper yet. But in his crate it was just a low, quiet growl...

I wonder if Roxie is also normally submissive to your husband, if it is at all possible that she is trying to get his attention without doing behaviours you have taught her are rude (such as poking or pawing for attention).

Just throwing it out there as a possibility.

My ex bf had a dog who talked just like Angela described. No one new would go near the dog b/c he always appeared to be growling, when in fact, Franklin was simply talking. And he talked all the time, about everything. You could tell after a while whether he was happy about something or not happy. For example, he low grumled/growled going upstairs, which he hated. On a nice walk in his favorite park, he kind of growl-chattered and made other odd noises. My ex got him to the point where he would say "Momma" and "I love you."

Anyway, not sure what's going on w/this dog, but Angela's dog is not the only one who does that, and until you see it for yourself and understand it, it's quite disconcerting. Not saying that's what's going on in THIS situation...just corroborating that what Angela has mentioned can happen as well.

FWIW, from just the OP's description, it does sound like their may be a bit of competition going on w/these two. Working on that can't hurt.

You know what, now that I think about it, Simon does this too. If I haven't been home in a while, he will howl, growl, chatter, yip, and make other noises I can't even describe, all while running around the house as if to show me what happened while I was gone, whose fault it was, etc. It's really funny. He did the same thing to my brother in law who stopped by. He watched Simon while I was out of town on business, and he had lots of stories for him. Everyone was in hysterics b/c it really seemed like Simon was trying to catch him up on everything that had happened since he last saw Joe. Who knows what really goes on in their minds? ;-)

Edited by Jenni Williams (12/30/2008 11:42 AM)
Edit reason: Simon

Angela,

You may be absolutely right! Roxie is very submissive to both of us and will do most anything to please us. She seems to be a very soft dog in some ways - if she is scolded for something, she will tuck her tail between her legs and look like we have killed her!

Now that you mention it, I have heard Roxie do the low growl when she is in her crate in the other room but she can still see me. I either ignore her or take her outside to potty. The other evening I had invited Nickie up on the couch to lay down next to me while I was watching a video. Roxie was across the room watching us and did her little growl after a few minutes. I told her to "come" and she came up to me for a little pat on the head.

So, maybe she IS just trying to be polite. Will be interested in hearing other opinions too!

Jenni,

I thank you also for your input - guess I always assumed that "growling" was a bad thing!

Sounds to me like she is "clearing her throat"... ahem.....

I totally understand the confusion. I have another dog that also talks, not like Jenni's ex's dog, but only when he gets excited like walk time or supper time. There is absolutely no confusion there because his growly noises are accompanied by a wildly wagging tail and jumps of joy. But when they just sit there quietly, look you in the eye, and grrrrrrr... kinda gives you the chills.

My boy is up for adoption.. so I'll definitely have to remember to explain that behaviour to his adopters... hehe.

Just wanted to add in that Teagan does something similar when she's talking. It startled me at first too Luckily though Teagan throws in other chatty noises, plus her body language makes it clear that she isn't growling aggressively.

I have a talker too, he sounds like he is growling a lot of the time. It can be disconcerting if you don't know that he is just talking. He will greet people by garrooooing at them.

He grumbles and growls and howls and yips and chatters and sometimes when he is really telling you something he will move his head and prance back and forth so that he looks and sounds like a snorting horse.

My other quieter dog will sort of do this low huff grumbling noise when he needs something, I thought he was growling the first few times as well and corrected for it, but then I realized he needed to potty or just wanted me to look at him.

Edited by Jennifer Lee (12/30/2008 12:01 PM)
Edit reason: run on sentence

I have a "talker" too. He will do a low growl when just laying there, and I don't know if it's that he hears something outside or if he's sore, or what. He also tends to "talk back" sometimes when told to plotz or sitz, by doing the command but making those growly noises as if he's dissatisfied with performing the task. I've also assumed it's just part of his challenging nature, and I just have to remain strong with him and not back down.

Same here, Zeus can be vocal when he's playing or when he's being stubborn or he's excited about going outside. he also will make a chomp with his teeth when he doesn't like a command.