the dogs have a habit of starting to 'wrestle' with each other when they're in front of me. but they're wagging their tails and having fun. that's it.

however i notice, is when my bf or brother is over, if luc is being petted and teagan comes up to be petted as well, luc will growl at teagan. today my brother was over and luc full out snarled - wrinkled muzzle and all!

teagan isn't pushing luc out of the way - she's just coming over as well. she completely ignores him growling/snarling.

i correct luc by telling him LUC! in my 'no!' voice, making him sit and holding his mouth shut, he has to look up at me and give me eye contact. teagan is on a leash in house, luc isn't, in terms of giving corrections. luc immediately responds to my vocal correction and accepts the correction with no issue.

is this just basic jealousy? possessiveness? while teagan can be pushy, i don't really think she is being so here, luc seems to be a tad overreactive to me.

am i looking at this the wrong way? should i not allow both dogs to be petted at the same time by my bf or brother? will this go away with time? that luc snarled today startled me.

sounds to me like they may be trying to figure out dominance. Most "issues" between pack mates are solved through games - tails wagging and all. This is why tug games are advised against when you have a dominance issue. I would start by correcting the playful dominating and rough-housing. Maybe an all around "knock it off" to everyone, or some other kind of attention getting correction. Then I would give them something to do. As far as petting goes, nothing should be free. When they are being petted, treat it as a training exercise. They get petted when they are seated and polite. If the butt leaves the ground, the petting stops and resumes when they return to the appropriate position. This eliminates the jealousy issue altogether, because they both are given something to "DO" - sit and be petted, and they are ultimately being given direction and leadership.
I personally don't allow this kind of behavior at all to happen with my dogs - it escalates too quickly and there is just no need for it.

yeah....that's a good point. the dogs have to do something to get petted by me, my brother is getting better about that, and not so much w/the bf. i hadn't thought of that.

generally luc fully accepts teagan as dominant. this is really the first issue i've had in the 5 months where he's done this. he's a pretty submissive dog who wants to please first and foremost generally, though every now and then a will of iron pops up.

i always correct luc, and it stops it at the time, but obviously has not been stopping the problem altogether.

my brother usually forgets, but he is improving at making petting part of NILIF, and i will bug the bf to do so as well. good call, thanks

Edited by Jennifer Mullen (04/15/2008 10:22 PM)
Edit reason: i mean, when my brother pets outside of NILIF, it's usually b/c he's forgotten, not that he's always forgetting....

i agree with cameron. all 4 of my guys get along just fine, they are often all out together in the house, back/front yard etc. but if i have visitors over who are dog friendly, i absolutely will not allow more than one dog to be petted at a time. if porter's getting affection and jersey comes over for a pet, i correct jersey and shoo her away. otherwise everyone gets more and more pushy.

in regards to play wrestling ... not around the humans! no one is allowed to start roughhousing at all in the house, and not within a certain distance to people (especially visitors, as i don't want the dogs to associate the arrival of guests with excitement and showing off). i want my dogs to respect every person's personal space (mine, too ), and wrestling together up against someone's leg is not very respectful in my mind

well they wrestle in front of me....the few times they've bumped into me they've been shoved off in no uncertain terms so don't do that anymore.

they do get along really well, generally - it's the visitors, and really, oddly, mostly the male visitors.

i'm used to petting them at the same time, if they're both in sits or doing something else. it's a good point too, that they become extremely excited when my brother comes over (i feel so unloved in comparison LOL), so that not only is there an issue if he misses having them do something, but we need to be making sure that they get the 1-on-1 attention instead, especially while they're so excited when he first arrives.

just a thought.... when your brother comes over, is he saying "hello" to the pups right away, or does he wait for them to calm down?

when i have visitors i have to enforce the "no touch, no eye contact" until it's no longer a big, exciting deal that the visitors are here. otherwise, my boys especially, will compete with each other to say hi, and showoff (which involves overly excited play wrestling that will escalate if left unchecked). If they (the dogs) cannot behave calmly, then they are put into a room separated with a baby gate (so they can still participate); and if they still act up the door is shut or the dog is kenneled and that's that, too bad! This method of handling guests has allowed me to allow my dogs to participate in the goings on in our house, without everybody going crazy!

i like to prevent my dogs from believing that visitors come to our house just to fawn all over the dorks on four legs !

usually i hang onto teagan and she sits and politely greets. luc will run up to say hi but he's not jumping up or anything, just a 'hello! i'm next to you wagging my tail!' kind of dog.

i let teagan go sooner than normal yesterday, and that may have gotten luc a little crotchety. she normally is quite near him during this, but maybe he felt like things were a bit out of order.

my brother's also going through a bit of a 'the dogs LOVE me! they are AMAZING!' period, which is nice, b/c he didn't like dogs before mine, and we're starting to work so that he can take care of the dogs when i'm away. i haven't wanted to quash his enthusiasm, as i figured eventually the 'whooo!' period would wear off, but - i have NEVER seen luc snarl with his muzzle all wrinkly. totally out of character. obviously i'm not keeping the rules consistent enough in this case, and i'm going to have to start keeping the rules w/my brother the same as with me, and insisting he do the same.

....in one way, it wasn't bad he saw luc snarl. he's never seen either dog be aggressive, other than a quick lunge teagan did at a dog she had no hope of getting when he handled them at one of my races a few weeks ago. b/c she's really improving, and just circumstances, he's never seen her get really aggressive, and there is part of me that wants to try to set something up, just so he can, b/c while he knows of the aggression incidents, i am a bit worried that his perception of her is more relaxed b/c he's never seen it. i tend to keep teagan on a short leash (metaphorically) so she has no chance of acting out and my expectations are clear. not only has that stopped in this specific situation, but it might be good to set up (a safe!!!! even if it was just dogs across the street and me not to step in and expect her to properly behave) scenario. she's improved a lot - every now and then inside i don't intercede when she sees a dog going past, and i have noticed she doesn't get as angry, but there are obviously still issues.

....now i'm getting slightly off-topic though

my brother is going to be moving into the basement apartment in may, so he popped by unexpectedly tonight w/my mom and some paint.

....the dogs were good, we talked about why EVERYONE will have to do NILIF w/them in terms of petting etc. teagan immediately went into her superstar obedience mode

When people come over, I typically put the dogs away. I only have one now, (My Rottie died last september) but the same routine is followed. I have two sets of crates, actually. One set downstairs, used to feed and when I am not home/supervising/have company. The other is upstairs, used at night. The dogs are put up when the doorbell rings (actually, they run to their crates when the doorbell rings - there is ALWAYS a treat given for doing that!) and I latch the doors. Guest comes in, coats off, greetings given, etc, no dogs allowed at all. After everything has settled down (about 10 minutes or so) the crate is opened (depending on the visitor) and if the dog comes out to greet, they have to sit to be petted. Usually, they would come out, get one or two pets, then amble back into the crate to continue the nap. I always made it a point that only high ranking humans are allowed to participate in greeting guests. A lot easier IMHO

teagan has a crate but luc does not - partly b/c of his history, when i got him, i didn't want to crate him (not logical or anything) but he's always been well-behaved, perfect with the small animals, not destructive, and i've never had a reason to crate him.

i think then - while i do crate teagan overnight and sometimes during the day, i try to treat them equally as much as possible, though as teagan is dominant she does get fed first etc. that may be more MY hangup then anything though teagan is always leashed in the house.

tonight both dogs had to sit and my mom and brother came in and THEN after they'd entered and the dogs were sitting calmly they got greeted.