ambassadorcjk
New member
We have two standard poodles. Our girl is 12 months old and relatively newly spayed; our boy is 8 months old and intact. His temperament has always been exceedingly sweet, cuddly, playful, attention-seeking. He’s about sixty pounds, while our girl is fifty. Despite the size difference, she’s stronger and more coordinated—just much more athletic.
He’s thoroughly socialized with humans and other dogs. We play with the same dogs virtually every day at a dog park. The first evidence of guarding showed up about six-eight weeks ago. If my wife is around and staying stationary (usually seated), he started guarding her from approaching dogs. He will even do this with familiar dogs, but is much more likely to react to less familiar/unfamiliar male dogs.
We recently kept a friend’s dog for a week. She’s an intact 16 month old Dane/hound mix. She (of course) went into heat right when we took her in, which likely exacerbated the issue. He humps girls quite a bit. It’s generally the same few girls, including our 12 month old—the kid wants to make some puppies. When he gets really fixated, I pack them up and either walk or head home. If he’s guarding me (this doesn’t happen often), I walk away from that spot, and he follows. This generally breaks the guarding mood, but not always.
In behavioral terms, the antecedent is generally him rooting himself to a spot or a person. The behavior is high-pitched, rapid barking and some lunging. He’s pretty tall and can stand above most of the other dogs. The consequence is that I remove him from the situation. Another element is that he usually (when he reacts) saves his vigilance for dogs smaller than himself (bullying). He’s fairly cowardly; when our girl starts barking out in the yard, he immediately asks to come inside.
We found a permanent home for the other girl, so that element has been removed. He’s generally really good at following commands and he’s a smart little boy. This is adolescent (I’m a big boy) guarding, but I want to prune it before he gets older and bigger. Oh, he’s also not oriented toward guarding things (toys, bones, etc.).
He’s thoroughly socialized with humans and other dogs. We play with the same dogs virtually every day at a dog park. The first evidence of guarding showed up about six-eight weeks ago. If my wife is around and staying stationary (usually seated), he started guarding her from approaching dogs. He will even do this with familiar dogs, but is much more likely to react to less familiar/unfamiliar male dogs.
We recently kept a friend’s dog for a week. She’s an intact 16 month old Dane/hound mix. She (of course) went into heat right when we took her in, which likely exacerbated the issue. He humps girls quite a bit. It’s generally the same few girls, including our 12 month old—the kid wants to make some puppies. When he gets really fixated, I pack them up and either walk or head home. If he’s guarding me (this doesn’t happen often), I walk away from that spot, and he follows. This generally breaks the guarding mood, but not always.
In behavioral terms, the antecedent is generally him rooting himself to a spot or a person. The behavior is high-pitched, rapid barking and some lunging. He’s pretty tall and can stand above most of the other dogs. The consequence is that I remove him from the situation. Another element is that he usually (when he reacts) saves his vigilance for dogs smaller than himself (bullying). He’s fairly cowardly; when our girl starts barking out in the yard, he immediately asks to come inside.
We found a permanent home for the other girl, so that element has been removed. He’s generally really good at following commands and he’s a smart little boy. This is adolescent (I’m a big boy) guarding, but I want to prune it before he gets older and bigger. Oh, he’s also not oriented toward guarding things (toys, bones, etc.).