----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 7:25 PM Subject: christmas visitor
> hi there, i'm just wondering what to do in this situation. i have an 8 month old BMD who has been around dogs all her life. ***she is at a point in her development where puppies commonly begin to assert themselves in more of a leadership role amongst their peers. i have two other mutts who are 5 and 6 and she adores them. i also walk dogs so she has been around all those dogs forever. now i have these other dogs stay with me sometimes--she is fine with these two girl dogs that have stayed here a few times since she was very little. ***these dogs are all familiar as a family of friends and each knows his/her place in the group but this holiday i am taking care of a boy vizsla who i have had since he was 6 months old, he's 4 years old now, for 3 weeks. she loves him when we go out hiking and they're fine. he is extremely submissive to everyone, too. he just likes to run and be chased. well, today i brought him home for a trial run to see how he was in my place and she was a total jerk. ***He is on HER territory. He, like you, expected her to accept him as he does in neutral territory. every time he walked by, her lip would raise. i have a basket of bones that i leave out and she snapped at him for no reason when he sort of went near it and he totally cried. ***there was GOOD reason in her mind. The basket of bones belongs to the family, NOT an interloper. she doesn't do this to the other dogs i take care of that she also knows. ***I suspect you WOULD see some of this behavior were they to come over at this time. I think you've not likely seen it before because she was not progressed to this stage of development where she is asserting all authority the others will give her. every afternoon when i come home to take my shower, she lays in the bathroom with me. well, today the vizsla was nervous so he came in there and i was petting him and she got all jealous and came over to be pet and snapped at him again. ***HER territory? Or yours. Time for this girl to go back into basic training so she understands that she is to accept all those things in YOUR home that YOU want accepted. She is a little "too big for her britches" which is a common thing for dogs (and kids) to go through. he got so scared he wouldn't walk by her for the rest of the afternoon and she was very cocky. **well of course. She had her way and was proud of it and wasn't about to give an inch of superiority ground she had gained. but he did take a bone and start chewing on it and she just looked at him and got another one. ***Good. She is telling him, I CAN let you have a bone and tomorrow I may decide you CANNOT have a bone. It's strictly up to me. she's not mean and she loves to play but i have never really seen this side of her. ***Girldogs can be quite fickle. so what's any advice on why she's being like this and what i can do when he stays for 3 weeks so he's not terrified. ***More time with her on leash doing things to please you. :-) also, the only other dog she's been like this with is her "sister" a 1 year-old ridgeback who lives upstairs and they see each other every day and were raised together--she gets a little weird with her, too, out of the blue, she gets mad and will raise her lip or snap suddenly--never fighting, but just snap. what should i do? ***Oh, so this isn't a new behavior. Your girl needs more restrictions, not so much freedom to self gratify, and many more opportunities each day to serve you. Serving you and being rewarded for it will prompt her to seek to serve you rather than to act impulsively because serving you gives her the things she craves most. Ruth Reynolds
