# Adult Lab mix very overprotective of new Chi puppy. Resulted in very nasty attack!



## Melgogs (Mar 21, 2013)

Hello, I have a question regarding the relationship dynamic between my adult dog and my 3 month old puppy! Do excuse my poor English! :redface:

My adult dog (Pearl) has many behavior problems I have been struggling to help her with for a long time. I adopted her form a shelter when she was 4 months old and she had previously come from a very abusive "home" so she has lots of distrust towards most humans and dogs alike as a result. 

I got a new puppy about 2 months ago from a shelter, a very playful and lively little Chi (named Coco).
Since we've had our new puppy, Pearl has been very very nice to her and surprisingly even a bit "submissive" so to speak with Coco. 
She will refuse to eat most of the time until Coco has eaten, she will ignore treats unless Coco had one too, she'll always let Coco have her pick of toys first and she'll let Coco get away with some pretty annoying behavior (like stealing Pearl's bully sticks)! 

This is all kinda cute stuff but I've noticed another behavioral problem with Pearl now.

Whenever anyone not from the family wants to pet Coco, Pearl will get extremely aggressive and has come as far as pulling on people's clothes to get them to stop touching Coco. 
The biggest confrontation that happened was on one day I took both Coco and Pearl on a walk at the park. I was foolish enough to let my little sister hold Pearl's leash and the results were awful. 

Two labs happened to pass by and they aproached Coco to sniff her and say hi and Pearl went completely insane. She attacked the two Labs with such strength my sister fell down and I had to basically tackle Pearl to make her let go of them. She even drew blood from them and it sprayed all over Coco .

I'm glad I live in Mexico cus otherwise I think these might be grounds for euthanasia in countries like the US! I do not take Pearl and Coco on walks together anymore but I'd rly like to ask, why does she act like this only when Coco is present? 
She barks at other dogs in normal walks, sure, but she's never outright attacked any dog or any human for that matter! Is this because she considers them being rude to Coco? 

I haven't gathered enough money yet to take Pearl to rehabilitation so in the meanwhile, what can I do for her? I love her very much and would like to do whatever I can to help her.


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## wvasko (Dec 15, 2007)

# 1. Management, walk dogs separately. Of course then you must be on your toes to avoid other large dogs on your walk cause small dogs sometimes appear as prey. It's also possible that your Lab is reading something that you did not when strange dogs approached. This is a guesstimate only.

# 2. If or whenyou find a behaviourist (not sure you need one if money is tight) make sure of references.


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## HollowHeaven (Feb 5, 2012)

I'm not sure why she'd be protective to that extent, or how to fix it, but like wvasko said, it's a matter of management for right now. Walk them separately, warn your guests about this issue -you may have to put them in separate rooms to interact with people or hold Pearl back.


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## Melgogs (Mar 21, 2013)

My solution atm is to walk them both at different times so they don't have to be together in walks. I'd hate for another incident to happen. 
The behaviourist I plan on seeing was recommended by my vet and he's one of the few in the city who don't adhere to Cesar Millan's teachings and who does not use a shock collar. He specializes in training guard dogs and positive reinforcement so I think he could be quite good. 
I need to save up a lot for it but I think I can do it!


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## wvasko (Dec 15, 2007)

Melgogs said:


> My solution atm is to walk them both at different times so they don't have to be together in walks. I'd hate for another incident to happen.
> The behaviourist I plan on seeing was recommended by my vet and he's one of the few in the city who don't adhere to Cesar Millan's teachings and who does not use a shock collar. He specializes in training guard dogs and positive reinforcement so I think he could be quite good.
> I need to save up a lot for it but I think I can do it!


Sounds like a solid plan. 

Again please be careful, the good news is pup small and can be scooped up when strange dogs approach. All it takes is a quick snarl and snap and pup can be damaged or worse. I am not trying to paranoid you out but forewarned is forearmed.

Interesting that the lack of e-collar is mentioned, I'm not sure that many if any behaviourists use them. Anybody else know of that type of behavioural work just curious.


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## Melgogs (Mar 21, 2013)

I tend to avoid most dogs at the park since the incident honestly and I've been sending my puppy to kindergarten classes that a friend who owes me money is paying for haha. 
I mostly just take her out now so she can have free air and go potty outside. I'm sometimes paranoid about birds of prey suddenly descending upon the pup so don't wrry, I think I'm paranoid enough here! 

Quite a few trainers and behaviourists I've seen and heard of around here not only use shock collar but they ASK you to provide one for them when you hand in your dog. They claim it does not "truly hurt" the dogs and just speeds up the training/rehab process, which I think is complete bull! A few other behaviourists do not do this but they adhere quite a bit to Cesar Millan's way or other punishment based ways which I just dislike quite a bit.  
There are many traditionalists here when it comes to dogs, even in my neighborhood.


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

It's called resource guarding, you can Google it (not saying all the results will have good advice, but just so you know what it is!). Now, with the other dogs, she may have sensed that they were about to attack Coco, and responded accordingly. But with her guarding Coco from humans, too, well, that's something that needs to be fixed. There's a good book called "Mine!" by Jean Donaldson that might be of help, if you can find it. She wrote another one called "Fight!" about resource guarding among dogs, but I don't know that guarding against loose strange dogs is covered.


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## wvasko (Dec 15, 2007)

> Quite a few trainers and behaviourists I've seen and heard of around here not only use shock collar but they ASK you to provide one for them when you hand in your dog.


That is pretty wild, first I would think a competent trainer would use his own tools and not rely on an owner's collar of any type.

Since I've never even met a behaviourist in real life in 50 yrs of training I can't say much as to what's in their tool bag. That being said, anybody else here know of behaviourists using e-collars.


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

I kinda doubt that Mexico is chock-full of actual behaviorists (other than guys who think they're hot stuff with a zap collar who call themselves whatever they want) .


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## wvasko (Dec 15, 2007)

Willowy said:


> I kinda doubt that Mexico is chock-full of actual behaviorists (other than guys who think they're hot stuff with a zap collar who call themselves whatever they want) .


Yes indeed, we may even have a few in the states.


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