teamjesus4e
New member
Also posted this to /r/dogtraining but wanted to post here to try to get some advice. My wife and I are really stressing about this.
Little bit of a long story, but essentially my wife and I got a blue heeler pup in March of 2018, and moved about 3 months later. We had a child in June of 2019, and that's where the weirdness starts.
My wife's mom and grandma came to stay with us at our apartment for two weeks, and everything was fine. However, the day before they were going to leave, our dog jumped up on my wife's grandma as she was coming across the room to come grab our son so my wife could get up and go to the kitchen (no biting). This sort of becomes a pattern. We immediately kenneled him for a while and he returned to normal.
Later, my mother in law came to stay with us again. This time, about halfway through her stay, she was walking towards my wife to come get our son from her, and our dog did the same thing - just a warning jump, and some barking afterwards. Again, we kenneled him for a little and he returned to normal.
Anyway, I'm a student, and recently returned to school after a break - during the break, I had to sleep on a separate bed from my wife due to space constraints at my in-laws. Two days ago (back at our apartment), when I was walking across the room to join my wife and son on the couch, our dog got up from his bed and did the same thing to me. This obviously rattled me, so we kenneled him to calm down and tried to see if he would repeat the behavior. Sure enough, today, he did the exact same thing.
I'm really worried. We've both been his owners since we got him, and I don't have to be away from home too often - maybe 3 days a week 4 hours each of those days. My wife did have a complicated pregnancy (in the hospital for 3 weeks), so I'm not sure if that was a catalyst or not, who knows. Our son is beginning to learn to stand and crawl, and we really don't want any complications with respect to him.
Mainly, we just don't want to have to get rid of our dog. We love him very much. If anybody has any advice with regard to this over-protectiveness, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Little bit of a long story, but essentially my wife and I got a blue heeler pup in March of 2018, and moved about 3 months later. We had a child in June of 2019, and that's where the weirdness starts.
My wife's mom and grandma came to stay with us at our apartment for two weeks, and everything was fine. However, the day before they were going to leave, our dog jumped up on my wife's grandma as she was coming across the room to come grab our son so my wife could get up and go to the kitchen (no biting). This sort of becomes a pattern. We immediately kenneled him for a while and he returned to normal.
Later, my mother in law came to stay with us again. This time, about halfway through her stay, she was walking towards my wife to come get our son from her, and our dog did the same thing - just a warning jump, and some barking afterwards. Again, we kenneled him for a little and he returned to normal.
Anyway, I'm a student, and recently returned to school after a break - during the break, I had to sleep on a separate bed from my wife due to space constraints at my in-laws. Two days ago (back at our apartment), when I was walking across the room to join my wife and son on the couch, our dog got up from his bed and did the same thing to me. This obviously rattled me, so we kenneled him to calm down and tried to see if he would repeat the behavior. Sure enough, today, he did the exact same thing.
I'm really worried. We've both been his owners since we got him, and I don't have to be away from home too often - maybe 3 days a week 4 hours each of those days. My wife did have a complicated pregnancy (in the hospital for 3 weeks), so I'm not sure if that was a catalyst or not, who knows. Our son is beginning to learn to stand and crawl, and we really don't want any complications with respect to him.
Mainly, we just don't want to have to get rid of our dog. We love him very much. If anybody has any advice with regard to this over-protectiveness, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.