Hello

I'm having some issues with my 1 year old belgian malinois pup showing aggression towards my wife. I am in the Navy and have been out of the house for the better part of 7 months while my wife took care of the dog. He never had any problems until I came back home.

He will listen to commands, sit, stay, down, out, etc. and always follows us out of doors and down stairs. He heals on leash very well with both us and never shows any aggression. We make him move when he is laying down and we need to walk past, and only pet him when we invite him over, never when he comes for petting.

However, when my wife is in a quite area with the dog, or he is laying near me and she tries making him move or walk past him, he starts growling at her, in which he receives a very strong correction from me with a prong collar, enough to knock him off his feet and having him groveling at mine. The problem is, it doesn't stop him growling at my wife if she walks by, even if it is 5 seconds after the correction.

Whenever she get's close to him and isn't playing with him with a toy or walking him on leash, he has been growling. He will get really tense with her and his hair on his back will stand up and he will just stare at her growling, in which she will correct him (as hard as she can which probably isn't sufficient I think) until he stops growling, then she ignores him. But he will just do the same thing again the next time. We have tried prong collar corrections, and lifting him off his front feet with the dominate dog collar to cut his air off until he stops growling.

Any other suggestions would be great, because it doesn't seem like it is getting any better.

Thanks

Wayde

I would handle this situation in a completely different way. By correcting your dog, he's probably either going to get the message "if I growl (or give any kind of warning) I'm going to be corrected", which will ultimately lead to the dog just biting with no warning,
OR
"when the wife approaches I get a correction, therefore the wife approaching is BAD NEWS and I need to stop it from happening". This would be my best guess at what the dog is thinking.

If this were my dog, I would stop correcting him and start having the wife take over the majority of the dog's care. For example, wife ALWAYS feeds, wife does all the walking, training, etc. EVERYTHING to do with your wife is now the most pleasant, wonderful thing on Earth and the dog depends 100% on your wife to have his needs met.

I would have her keep him on a leash in the house so he is always at her feet or following her around. If he is at her feet there is no more worry about her approaching him and getting growled at.

You didn't make any mention of this, but I would also make sure there are no toys laying around for him to get possessive with.

Well that's just the thing I don't understand, she has been taking care of everything for him for the past 6 months at least while I've been out to sea, now I'm back home and he is starting the growling at her, and not me. Toys are not left out with him either.

Wayde, do you have a sport club nearby (SchH, Mondio, FR etc.) or a good trainer who deals with aggression to take your pup to for evaluation?

Aggression towards family members would be something I'd contact a professional about ASAP. Especially considering the fact that you are already giving your puppy very hard corrections and it does not help.

Wayde, is there any possibility that your wife is acting fearful or is nervous around your dog? It might be a natural reaction from her considering the dog is growling at her etc.

I know that many times the dogs can react to the energy like fear or nervousness.
Another thing, that I am not clearly sure of, but came to mind:
Could it be possible that your dog is resource guarding you?
Others will and should chime in here and please anyone, if I am off on this, please say so. I would like to know myself if dogs can actually resource guard people as well as things.
I found this article on resource guarding:
http://ahimsadogtraining.com/blog/resource-guarding/

But it might be off the mark...just a suggestion.
I agree though that this being a serious issue, it would be good to seek a professional to help you.