Puppy Possessive Over Other Dog Owners

[MissThomas]

Hi, your website is an incredible resource and so helpful for a first time dog owner. 

We have a 6 month old Jack Russel called Ripley. She has some resource guarding issues with food and objects that we're currently dealing with, but this post is about something that has appeared recently and we're not sure how to tackle it:

If another dog owner is giving her attention and their dog comes close to her she'll growl or snap at them, even when they're not showing any aggressive or agitated behaviour. It seems like she guards the person stroking her even though they're 'not hers'. 

She doesn't seem to mind me stroking other dogs though, not to the point of growling or snapping anyway. 

Any insight on how to address this would be very much appreciated. 

Claire

[Adrienne]

Hello and welcome to the forums,

This is certainly an interesting behavior. It would be important to ensure that the behavior primarily and exclusively occurs when Ripley is receiving attention from people and  their dogs happen to approach. In other words, the snapping and barking occurs contingent upon other dogs approaching when Ripley is being stroked, and not in other circumstances. Contingencies in such cases are very important, because the approach used to tackle the issue can vary widely based on the underlying cause. 

It would therefore be important knowing whether:

1) Ripley gets along with other dogs. Does Ripley have a good track record of getting along with other dogs (when the owners are away) and him getting perfectly along with them? 

2) Ripley does perfectly fine with people. Does Ripley have an excellent track record of being totally fine with people approaching him  (when their dogs are away or with people with no dogs) and looming down to pet him?

Other questions that come to mind:

Does this happen when Ripley is on leash or even off leash? 

Are the other dogs approaching on leash or off leash?

Are you always nearby when this happens? 

Does Ripley have a history of startling?

Does he always meet the same dogs and the same owners?

Has Ripley ever showed any signs of getting tense/growling or snapping towards other dogs or people in other circumstances?

How often do people meet him and want to pet him?

Thanks for the extra details. 

[MissThomas]

Thanks for your reply Adrienne!

• She gets on well with other dogs in most instances, she loves to meet and play with them, both with and without the other owner. She does resource guard toys and treats around other dogs, to the point of darting away from them or growling. She did once get into a fight with another dog who was trying to get a treat I was giving to Ripley. When she is tired or overstimulated (for example when we've spent too long at the park) she is more likely to become growly or fighty with other dogs. But 90% of the time she gets on well with dogs.
• She gets on extremely well with people, with or without pets, loves meeting them and getting attention. She even pulls on her lead to go to people and is fine with them looming to pet her. She's never had an instance of being aggressive with other people, though she still might dart away if she's resource guarding something she's picked up off the ground.
• The instances of guarding other dog owners has only happened on the lead, since they occurred whilst out on walks. The dogs were also on leads at the time, and I was also nearby. I should point out that she doesn't do this in every interaction with other owners/dogs, it's something she's started recently. She does exhibit some leash/barrier frustration on occasion.
• She does startle, when there's a sudden sharp sound or if she's woken too suddenly, but she's generally not a nervous or anxious dog.
• We meet the same dogs/owners on our daily walks and many different ones at the weekends when we take her to the dog park. The instances where she guarded other owners occurred with dogs/owners that we see regularly and she knows them very well. The toy/treat guarding takes place with most dogs, whether she knows them well or not. On our twice daily walks she typically will meet 2-5 people that she interacts with, some she sees often and others are complete strangers, and they are always positive experiences.
• The only times she's shown signs of aggression towards other dogs are as I stated above: when guarding, when tired/over stimulated, and sometimes if the dog is smaller than her she can get pushy with them.
• The only people she's ever shown aggression to have been my partner and I when we've tried to take something away that she's guarding, like a dangerous object, poisonous food, or another dog's toy.

Many thanks,

Claire

[Adrienne]

Thank you for the extra details, this is very helpful!

OK, glad to hear that she seems very comfortable with people around her and giving her attention. With other dogs, although she sounds very social with, we need to consider that she has some triggers (resource guarding tendency, lowered threshold when tired and now this new behavior) so we need to keep this in consideration. 

In a case as such, I would suggest using management. In other words, protecting her from being put in the situations that evoke the growling/snapping behavior. The advantages of management are several:

1) It prevents rehearsal of the problem behavior. The more a dog rehearses a problem behavior, the more it risks becoming ingrained and an established part of the dog's behavior repertoire. Practice makes perfect-just an actor gets better by rehearsing a role over and over, dogs get better at rehearsing certain behaviors the more they engage in it. This of course applies to both good and problematic behaviors. Behaviors that tend to repeat have some underlying reinforcer at play, something that fuels the behavior and maintains it.

Reinforcers are of two main types: positive and negative.

In positive, something the dog perceives as pleasant is added. Like a treat given after a dog sits will make the sit behavior more probable in the future. In this case, the sitting is positively reinforced. "When I sit, I get a treat, so will sit more frequently."

Or in the case of a dog looking for attention, if when he nips, the owner looks and him and interacts with him (even if to push him away or scold him), the addition of attention will fuel the nipping behavior making it more probable in the future when the dog feels attention-deprived. "When I nip, I get my owner to interact with me, so I will nip more frequently."

In negative reinforcement, something the dog perceives as unpleasant is removed. Like if we pick up a dog and the dog moves a lot because he doesn't like to be picked up, and we put him back on the floor when he does so, the  moving a lot is negatively reinforced (ideally we should take the time to teach these dogs how pleasant it can be to be picked up). "When I move a lot, my owner places me on the floor and I feel relief, so I will move a lot again next time."

In another example without human intervention, imagine a dog is under the hot sun in the yard. The dog doesn't like it cause it's burning his skin and making him feel very hot, since the sun is perceived as unpleasant, the dog will want to move away to feel better. Because being under the shady tree feels good, next time when the dog is slightly hot again, he'll likely keep on going under the tree when he's hot (reinforcement).

In your case, of Ripley growling/snapping, this an distance-increasing behavior, meaning that she isn't comfortable with the other dogs approaching and wants to increase distance. Because the behavior from her perspective 'works" in keeping the dogs at away, it will keep on repeating as there's negative reinforcement at play "every time I growl/snap, it keeps the other dogs away, so will keep on rehearsing this behavior."

This is similar to a person who doesn't like cats. If every time a cat approaches, the person makes a hissing sound and stomps his feet, this keeps the cat away, granted, he'll use a similar approach next time. 

In Ripley's case, there may be some element of resource guarding (like as if these people are doling out treats, only that instead of treats, they're doling out attention) or it could be simply that she doesn't want other dogs interfering when she's busy. It is possible that she may also have some low levels of discomfort when around other dogs in similar contexts (like when she's busy sniffing or scratching/licking herself) only that these signs aren't noticeable enough. See Kendall Shepherd's ladder of aggression; 

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/dogs-dont-bite-blue/

2) Management helps keep your dog safe. Not all dogs are respectful of when a dog growls/snaps to ask for distance. Sure, all may go well dogs who are well socialized and avoid putting themselves into problematic situations will steer clear and move away or give some other pacifying signal (OK, OK, I got the message, I won't come closer, it's all good), but that day your dog meets a dog who won' take this, it would mean trouble. All it takes is a dog who will talk back "What did you just say? No way, I won't allow you to get attention from MY OWNERS and even snap/growl at me for coming close!" 

Of course, dogs may not think this way, but you get the idea, things happen at a more instinctive level. Even a dog who is normally OK, who has had enough of this behavior may decide one day out of the blue to lash out.  Being your dog smaller this can prove disastrous with larger dogs.  All it takes for a large dog is a quick grab by the neck and shake to kill a smaller dog. I don't want to create fear, but these things do happen. 

3) Management will help maintain good associations. If your dog plays well with other dogs at the park, and seems to enjoy other dogs' company outside of the circumstances that seem to act as a trigger (food, feeling tired, interfering when she gets attention) we don't want to blur these good associations with dogs with too negatives. In other words, if Ripley starts feeling tense every time dogs approach her when people are petting her, there are chances these feelings will spread to other contexts. 

Also, consider trigger stacking, the phenomenon where the accumulation of stressful events may cause a dog to lash out "out of the blue.' A dog who was perfectly social and suddenly decides to bite another dog at the dog park, may look like he has bitten out of the blue, when in reality there's a new baby in the home, he's resource guarding against the cat who had started stealing his food, and there are new noises (like baby crying) that startles him in the sleep. All this accumulated stress has creating a breaking point. 

So in your case, I would simply be your dog's ambassador and gently ask that people who have dogs do not pet your dog. Actually, people should always politely ask first "can I pet your dog?" What happened to this courtesy that was so commonplace years back? 

If there is one person you don't know and one dog it could be: "sorry, Ripley is in training right now" or with somebody you know who is aware of the behavior "sorry, we are trying to prevent her from rehearsing." If there are two people it could be: "only one please, but without the dog."  In this latter case, then good canine etiquette would have the person approach (without getting directly into the dog's space) and let the dog decide whether he or she is in the mood for attention (a longer leash can give her more freedom) while owner watches carefully for signs of tiring and intervenes if the person acts inappropriately (trying to hug, kiss the dog, put their face too close etc, heavy head patting) by saying "no please don't do that, please limit to petting her on the chest, that what she likes." 

As Ripley matures, she may also come to a point where she may start being selective about which dogs she prefers to play with/interact with. There is a common belief that dogs in order to be "good dogs" should be willing to play with all types of dogs and stranger dogs, but this is not true. 

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions,

Best,

Adrienne 

[MissThomas]

This is so helpful, thank you. I'm going to refer back to your advice regularly as she gets older. Management makes perfect sense and we've been doing similar when she's at the park (making sure we recognise when she's getting tired and taking her home before she gets grouchy with other dogs), as does your point about trigger stacking.

We'll make sure to avoid situations that encourage her to guard or feel like her personal space is being encroached upon. It'll be tricky because she loves people and attention so much, but if there's another dog there we'll have to be firm about it. I assume it would help to reward her when she doesn't react negatively in these specific situations as well.

To your point about people not asking permission to pet a dog - I've found children are much more likely to politely ask to pet my dog, whereas adults are more likely to just go ahead without asking. We've even had to pre-emptively tell people not to pick Ripley up because so many people will just do it without asking! So strange, I'd never just pick up a stranger's dog without permission. And they never even do it properly, they always pick her up awkwardly and she struggles to get down. We've had to become very forward and adamant about not allowing people to do it.

As you say - we need to be an ambassador for her.

Thanks so much for all your help.

Claire

[Adrienne]

 We'll make sure to avoid situations that encourage her to guard or feel like her personal space is being encroached upon. It'll be tricky because she loves people and attention so much, but if there's another dog there we'll have to be firm about it. I assume it would help to reward her when she doesn't react negatively in these specific situations as well.

Ideally, in a perfectly structured world, it could work, but we need to consider some factors and risks.

For example, in order to reward her for not reacting negatively, we would need to have the other dogs present, but they would have to be at a distance and presented in a way that doesn't make her react. In other words we would need her to be perfectly under threshold: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/

Now, if she is very focused on being given attention, will she be able to associate her being rewarded for not reacting with the dogs at a distance? This can be tricky.

On top of this, we need to consider that, when she is given attention, she is already being rewarded in some way, so if we want to add treats into the picture, we are increasing the rewards, giving her a double whammy of attention + food rewards so we therefore need to consider the risk that these people could potentially end up turning super valuable to her, to the point that she may feel even more motivated to guard them if we aren't doing a super diligent, clean job on watching what associations are being made. 

I would exclude the option of having the dog owners stop giving attention contingent upon her reacting to other dogs, as that could lead to a double whammy of negatives (the approaching dog increasing her stress, and now on top of that, the presence of this dog making the good things (attention) end, which can lead Ripley to think that dogs approaching are now super bad, with the addition of them becoming predictors of all the good attention stopping. 

It  *could* be possible to do behavior modification on this in an open bar/closed bar fashion where treats are given contingent upon the presence of other dogs initially walking at a distance and then gradually closer, but it would need to be done in a very structured manner making it crystal clear that she gets the good stuff only when dogs are present and not when they are not present, but you would have to have great control over the environment (organize setups ideally) and ensure these criteria are met:

-You would need the other dog to be in a calm state (most dogs struggle with dogs who move fast and with energy)

-You would need to have one person walk a dog back and forth at a distance where Ripley wouldn't react while the other person is giving attention

-You would need to feed Ripley treats with perfectly good timing until the other dog is no longer in sight

-You would need to ensure Ripley *does see* the dog while she is given the attention/treat

-You would need to carefully screen Ripley for signs of stress to prevent her from going over threshold

-You would need to gauge how things are going before walking the other dog closer and build up to the point of coming near

-You would need to methodically track progress to ensure this method is yielding results

It goes without saying it's a time consuming affair and for safety/correct implementation you would need to work under the direct guidance of a behavior professional to ensure everything goes smoothly and reduce risks for setbacks and negative associations that could generalize to other settings. In cases like this, therefore I feel management works best, especially if it is something that can be easily avoided.

To your point about people not asking permission to pet a dog - I've found children are much more likely to politely ask to pet my dog, whereas adults are more likely to just go ahead without asking. We've even had to pre-emptively tell people not to pick Ripley up because so many people will just do it without asking! So strange, I'd never just pick up a stranger's dog without permission. And they never even do it properly, they always pick her up awkwardly and she struggles to get down. We've had to become very forward and adamant about not allowing people to do it.

Oh wow, that must be very upsetting, especially that they pick her up in an uncomfortable way! Reminds me of when I once had a child pop up from nowhere, sneak up from behind us and start hugging Einstein so tightly I swear his eyes seemed to be popping out. His mom was at a distance talking on the phone completely unaware of all of this. Fortunately I had hot dogs on me on that occasion and I fed Einstein several pieces in a row as he endured the headlock style hug. Once the hug was over, I stopped feeding treats. Phewww... Bless Einstein's heart for his patience!