Hi guys, just got home from 2.5 weeks away from my husband and Jack. Jack was apparently great for the husband while I was gone, besides the growling and snapping at ppl who reach their hands to him.
I got home Monday and I fell asleep on the couch with Jack out and about when I woke up my husband came over to give me a kiss and Jack growled at him and lunged at him a little.
For the past month my husband has been doing everything with Jack, walking, feeding, training ect...
The problem is We need to stop Jack from that and from growling at ppl (snapping too)if they happen to hold their hands down and we really need to stop Jack from turning on my husband when I am sleeping or relaxing.
We think the people we got him from lied to us about the reasons they were giving him away they had a letter from a dog kennel saying that he was awesome. They also just got him neutered a week before we got him. Please help ideas would be appreciated. (BTW he is great at everything else, kept in his kennel when we are not able to supervise him, does not bark at people or dogs while out for a walk just the 2 issues I explained)

Is that Jack in the picture? Athletic lookin' pup!

What do you guys do for exercise?

Of course that isn't a cure all, but it does help.:smile:

Nevermind, just read back through a couple of your other threads and found the exercise amounts.

Ya Jack gets about 3 hour long walks per day, playing and training

My first thoughts are where are you with the groundwork program mentioned on this site?

Have you ever done the groundwork program with him?

Also, was this dog on the couch with you when you were sleeping or was he just free in the house?

The 2 "small" issues that you mention would be huge issues to me. If it were my dog, I would start with the groundwork program, then start paying attention to my dog being uncomfortable with strangers petting him and stop putting him in the situation where he feels he needs to defend himself.

I have 4 dogs - three are extremely social and I do allow people that I know to pet them. My 4th only accepts her "pack" showing her affection so I do not allow people to pet her - EVER. When we have people over, she gets put in her room. When we are out and about she ignores everyone - I never had to teach her to be neutral to strangers, she just always was because she has no interest in them. Not all dogs are the same and not all dogs are social with people/dogs/animals outside their pack.

Your husband should also be involved in all of the groundwork.

we are doing the ground work My husband has been doing everything with him. The issues are huge to us but we are looking for ways to help both him and us. We do not know a lot about his back ground, what we were told was they played really rough with him. There was a mother father and 3 children. We need for him to be comfortable with our families even if it is just to ignore them. The major problem is the fact that he feels the need to protect me from my husband, it is almost like he is trying to stop my husband from disturbing me while I am "at rest". It does not matter if he is just wondering around the house of sitting with me on the couch, if I am relaxing and my husband comes over to be Jack gets upset with it.

 Quote: corina peterson

.... The major problem is the fact that he feels the need to protect me from my husband, it is almost like he is trying to stop my husband from disturbing me while I am "at rest".

Do you know the term "resource guarding"? This is what I see here.

A pile of pack structure ground work is still the prescription, IMO, but also, it might help your POV if you understand that the dog isn't protecting your rest -- he is guarding "his property" from interlopers.

I am on the same page with Connie.

Could you go into more detail about what exactly his routeen and groundwork are like?

I know its a big question to answer, but sometimes we can't see the little mistakes that we are making that can be causing us big headaches with our dogs and sometimes having someone else look at it makes it really easy to see the problem. The reason I say this - not knowing how long you have had this dog - is that at this point the routeen/groundwork is not effective as the problem that you are experiencing is directly related to pack structure.

In other words, the dog should not be resource guarding you from anyone - you decide what resources are guarded and when, you also decide if and when there is aggression. So the dog is making decisions without looking to the pack leader.

So assuming you haven't had the dog that long - this is something that needs to be nipped in the bud now. If you have had this dog for a period of time and the problem is not getting better then the groundwork and pack structure needs to be reviewed so you can see what you can tweak to achieve a leadership role for your dog.