?Jealousy

[CherylHampton]

Hi! Well I'm back after being away for a full five minutes lol! I was reading your reply to a post regarding what may be jealousy between a14 month old and another pet. You commented about the dog getting between the owner and herding another approaching dog away. Shiloh does this routinely. His playmate Sophie tries to get petted but he simply won't allow it. Hes totally non aggressive but will.wedge himself between sophie and me and push her away, often times trying to engage her to play more, but he definitely doesn't want her to have any attention from Me. Since he's never been aggressive toward her, is this cause for concern? They've been playmates for some time and get along very well. Thanks as always for your help😊

[Adrienne]

Hi Cheryl, 

Yes, some dogs can act that way. It's good that he's totally non aggressive. Because Sophie is a female, he may just keep manifesting his slight displeasure this way, trying to herd her away or finding tactics to distract her. In my household, Petra, my female Rottweiler was the jealous one, and it was often funny how she would come up with some astute strategies to get Einstein to stop being talked to or given attention.

She would rush to door and pretend to bark at something hoping he would join in or she would grab a long tug toy to get him to tug or she would start sniffing as if she found a treasure. Einstein would often fall for it.

In general, I find that male dogs let female dogs get away more with things like this, and it sounds like in your case both dogs have a great relationship, however, sometimes, as young dogs mature, they may get a little bolder in their approaches with other dogs so I tend to like to be pro-active on things like this, so to prevent future problems. 

In such a case, there are several options:

 Since the dogs do not share the household and are only playmates, for the time being, it may worthy to just prevent problems. In other words, not giving attention to a particular dog when they are together. Simply enjoy watching them play with no petting involved. If you need to give for some reasons attention to Sophie, do so when Mr. Jealousy  in another area where he cannot see you or (hear you!) giving her attention.

If Sophie approaches you, ignore her, and if she insists, and Shiloh starts trying to herd her away, get up and leave.  With no owner's attention to stir things up, the dogs are left with nothing to compete over. If done with perfect timing, the jealous dog may eventually learn that his behavior leads to the owner leaving so he should reduce the jealousy episodes.

Another approach involves some behavior modification, aiming on teaching the jealous dog that good things happen every time the other dog approaches and is given attention. The jealous dog is therefore fed treats contingently to when the other dog comes near. When the other dog is away, Mr. "Otello" is ignored. I personally prefer this approach as it  aims to change the mindset and goes to the "root of the problem."

Both approaches and some more are covered here:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/dogs-fighting-over-owner/