Dog suddenly is protective of me. Is that common or "aggression."

[stockroomman]

My dog is a rescue. He's a 5 year old coton/maltese mix We've had for about 4 months now. He has a lot of reactivity but we've never considered it aggressive. More... whiny and fearful? Particularly towards men and other dogs. He was abused for almost his whole life. We've been patient in training with him cuz we are aware of his trauma. Luckily he took a liking to me very early on but my husband took some time.

However, now, I can confidently say he loves my husband and considers both of us as his "pack." We still have our off moments where he'll be on guard with my husband for some reason or he'll pet him wrong and my dog will ask him to back off. Particularly late at night when doggo wants to sleep, he'll kinda step away from us indicating he wants no more pets and to sleep. Early on, we didn't know so he'd growl a little as a warning. Now we leave him alone when he needs his sleep and we've had no issues.

He sleeps on the bed with us on his own blanket. He knows we all have our own spots and respects it. When it's time for bed, he'll go to his spot and lay down.

Our routine was husband and he will wake up at 7-8 and he'll be fed. I've been sleeping in til 9 cuz I'm 38 weeks pregnant and sleep and I aren't friends right now our dog will come in and lick my hand to wake me up around 9:30-10. Lately he'll eat his breakfast and then come back to bed and lay with me until I wake up. He won't bother me unless it's past 10.

I think he knows I'm pregnant and is guarding me? Sometimes if husband comes in too unexpectedly, our dog will growl until he realizes it's him.

Last night, I was feeling sick and laid on the couch before dinner. My sweet husband let me rest until dinner was ready. He came over gently telling me to wake up. Maybe I reacted cranky? But our dog suddenly got up and growled loudly.

He went as far as tugging on my husband's sleeve o.o he's NEVER physically gotten so close to a bite. Once I got up and stopped him, he went over to my husband to cuddle and lick him. Almost like an apology? Is this aggression or is he just on guard cuz he can sense I'm unwell? Anyone experience something like this with their pets?

 

[lemonville]

@stockroomman Sounds like resource guarding to me and it sounds like he’s been doing it in various forms all along. I think it has more to do with having to compete for resources in the past than it does with your pregnancy.

I don’t normally get serious like this, but I would urge you to find a behaviourist ASAP. Resource guarding is one of the major causes of biting (as is being fearful) and you have a baby on the way. You need some strategies and plans to help you. I would also suggest that you muzzle train him too.

You need to crate train your dog as soon as you can. He needs to be off your bed at night when the baby comes because you’re going to be and about. The chances of his being disturbed when sleeping are high and he could bite one of you. Whether he’s guarding his space or you, you have to stop him from practicing this behaviour. I ban all resource guarders from furniture until I’ve worked with them.

If you think about the incident on the sofa, I would imagine your husband went away after the growl and sleeve bite. Your dog just learned that biting makes people get out of his space. You don’t want to keep reinforcing that, so you can’t allow him to be in situations where he has a chance to keep doing it. He then went into your husbands space to give him attention. That’s really common with resource guarders. They’re often dogs who invite themselves on laps and jump up on their owners but defend their own space from humans.

 

[stockroomman]

@lemonville Thank you. I never thought about it as resource guarding cuz he's usually so gentle with his toys/food

And my husband did back away. And I had to settle my dog I didn't know thay was wrong. Ahhh. We'll definitely be asking our vet for some trainer recs

 

[bluerockcat]

@stockroomman Make sure to ask for a science based, force free trainer!

 

[lemonville]

@stockroomman I was really surprised the first time I saw a dog guarding a sofa - I thought that resource guarding was toys and food.

There’s no way you could have done anything different during that incident because you didn’t know the context. It’s hard to work out what triggers some dogs and recently adopted are still showing new behaviours all the time. That’s great that you’re thinking of getting a trainer