Hello!

I found one other thread on jealousy but my situation is slightly different so I thought i would start a new one.

Recently, Gus has been showing some jealousy towards other dogs. It seems to only be with me, and not with my husband. But then again, my husband doesn't really stop too often to socialize with other dog owners.

At first, if I pet another dog, Gus would run up to me, and get really close to lean on me and rub his head into me. So i would pet both of them together, trying to give Gus a little more attention. Sometimes, he will try to get in between the other dog and I. But yesterday, this little french bulldog jumped up on my legs, and i didn't even pet him, but Gus jumped on top of him and made this weird whiny noise. It wasn't an aggressive growl or attack (yet!). It sounded very whiny. He had his mouth open like he was mouthing him, but i wouldn't call it an attack. I pulled him off quickly, and left right away, paying no attention to Gus.

He doesn't seem to do this with dogs that he knows though. And specifically, with dogs that he knows and gets along with well.

Anybody ever deal with this? Or have any advice on how I should handle this better next time?

I'm curious to see what others will say, because this has also popped up with Dizzy lately, oddly enough, also with a frenchie. What I've started doing is telling him to back up and sort of 'claiming' the frenchie, for lack of a better term. I use the command 'off,' for us it's kind of a catch all similar to 'leave it.' So, I bent down to pet the other dog, Diz came over and tried to bully his way in, I stood up, said 'off,' and snapped and pointed away. He backed up and everytime he would try to come in, I corrected him and made him backup. Almost like reminding him that I own him, not the other way around. Then I would invite him in, and send him away again. Kind of made an exercise out of it. It seemed to work in the moment, but I've only tried it once, so I'm not sure what the long term effect will be.

Thanks Jen! I'll try that next time. Gus seems to get very anxious and stressed so I'm not sure if he'll listen to my "leave it" command. In fact, he's been a pain lately and not listening at all. His leash training has taken a huge step backwards and throws a tantrum every time I correct him. I know it's probably because we haven't done a lot of leash training because of the winter. But i think it's also just his teenage brattiness taking over.

I was thinking of removing him from the situation and walking away. Let him calm down, then come back and try again. But I was worried that doing so might reinforce the behaviour by showing him that he gets me all to himself if he acts like that.

How old is he now? If I remember correctly he's a couple months younger than Dizzy right? I remember that being a particularly frustrating time with Diz.

He's about 1yr 3mths. So just a couple months older than Diz But definitely not as well behaved as Dizzy!

Ha! Oh, believe me, he has his issues, and this is one of them. He is also toy possessive and can get aggressive over them. I've had a hard time working on that because we don't have another dog, he is terrible at sharing. And he can't greet other dogs appropriately on leash yet, although now we can walk by most of the time, without him causing a ruckus by trying to play.

Our dogs are like twins Jen. I have a lot of the same issues with Mishka. It's very hard to work on possessive behaviors when you only have one dog.

I didn't even know he had issues with it until we went to stay with Meredith and he went after Shadow over a toy. It was really embarrassing! He's fine with humans, anyone can take anything from him, but has issues with sharing.

Gus is a major food guarder. like... MAJOR. With dogs only. And it's tough to work on that with only one dog at home. I'm with you guys on this one! haha and trust me, I will not be ready for doggy #2 for awhile haha. I need my stress levels to go back to normal from just having the one husky haha.

He's surprisingly not possessive of his toys at all though. But it only seems like that with his own toys in his own home with a dog that he likes. At the park, he will sometimes play keep-away with someone else's toy. But i never let him do that for too long in case it escalates into something else.

With greeting other dogs, he has been pretty bad lately. With older, calmer dogs, he's not too bad. But i find that recently, with smaller, more hyper dogs, he gets overly excited and pounces on them, which scares them and the little ones freak out! I can't tell if he's being friendly or not. Sometimes he does this little dance where he swings a paw at them. I think it's playful, but when they're so small, I'd rather be safe than sorry haha.

With the jealousy thing, he was on leash, while the others were not (it wasn't a fenced in area), so I'm wondering if that could have caused him some stress.

Just thought I'd give my situation as well.

Lycus used to be AWFUL about sharing food/toys. Back when my brother still lived with us and with his Pekingese, him and Lycus used to get into fits a lot over food and toys. Even at the dog park he was bad about sharing toys. Every time he'd pick one up, I'd tell him to drop it to avoid any issues. Thankfully, no issues as far as jealousy with other dogs.

My brother has since moved out with his dog, and since our old dog passed away last summer, my parents decided to get a poodle mix a couple of months ago. At first I was terrified of him being around Lycus with food and toys. This little guy barely reached 7lbs like 2 weeks ago lol. But anyways, of course, Lycus would be very protective over food and toys, although, not as bad as he was with the Peki. Everytime Ray (poodle mix) would come near by, Lycus would snap up his toy and make a sound and walk away with it.

Now, they play perfectly fine together and he even lets Ray take the toys from his mouth, and lets him walk up to his food bowl.

The main thing I did was when they were playing with toys, I would tell Lycus 'drop it' when Ray was near by and then immediately tell him 'off' (also means 'leave it' for us) and that way Ray could grab the toy. Every time Lycus wouldn't make any type of fit when Ray got the toy, I would praise him and give him a treat. Thankfully Lycus caught on REALLY fast and now they play together pretty well and Ray even takes toys straight out of Lycus' mouth. I have yet to let them eat from the same bowl, but I know now Ray can go into it if theres food, and if Lycus isn't eating, he won't care anymore. He's the same at the dog park as well.

I'm not saying this will work for you guys, but maybe it can give you guys some ideas on how to work with it at the dog park or somewhere with other dogs. It did take a lot of time, but it has paid off.

That's a great suggestion, thank you! I will definitely give that a try!