hey everyone

so my rescue puppy trouble is 8 months old and he is in obedience training, we have done two lessons and already he isnt pulling on his leash ( he used to constantly pull and if we seen another dog he would bark and lung at the end of his leash, yet if off leash would be totally fine with other dogs) he understands what heel means, and no.

so here is the problem he seems to be possessive or resource guarding people mainly me but has happened with other people too (isn't object possessive anymore unless its a really good bone and Nika the roommates dog goes near him, she is the same way). this doesn't always happen has maybe been 7-8 times since we first rescued him in May. So ill explain a couple of the incidents to give you an idea.

1. I was sitting next to trouble petting him and Nika was by her owner getting pets and Trouble was staring at her. next thing we know he jumps at her and nips in the air (has only ever made contact once when doing this. so i grabbed him told him no and pushed him to the ground (this is what ive been told to do) 10 min later then are playing together.

2. another time this happened Nika was getting attention from a house guest and he went over to get pets too is what we all thought and he lunged and nipped at her so i again firm no and held him to the ground. took about 20 min to get him to "act normal again" and they were back to playing around like best friends

3. he was sleeping under the table we were all sitting around playing a game and someone walked up to me and he lunged from under the table at them.

i can now tell when he is thinking of doing this i can see him get this death stare and almost freeze like hes hunting prey then he pounces. I don't think what Ive been told to do is helping this bad behavior to stop. I dont understand why he is doing this in the first place if he wants attention and its jealous, if he is guarding me, or if he is just being possessive.

He is a great happy loving dog, but this concerns me and is something i want to put a stop to now, any advice will be greatly appreciated

Thanks in Advance

Doing the whole dominance throw them to the ground method often doesn't help with huskies and can make things worse. Simply making the correction with a strong no and removing him from what is getting him hyped up will probably work better. If you can tell when he is going to do something you need to head him off. Disrupt the stare, disrupt tension by snapping your fingers or even doing a pop quiz of commands like making him sit and stay. As you get deeper into obedience training it should help you take control of him because right now he sounds like a control freak that is pushing his place.

Thank you, The couple of times I have noticed he change in behavior before it happens I have told him no and made him sit. and it has stopped him from doing it but distracting him is hard. he is stubborn. Ive tried snapping my fingers in his face, making clicking sounds ( i do this to get his attention all the time and it normally works). clapping my hands, whistling. any other suggestions on how to gain his attention when he is in this mode? breaking his attention seems to be the hard thing.

do you think that by just correcting this behavior when it happens will actually make it stop eventually?

I'll answer your last question first:  All behaviour changes come by correcting the bad behaviours we don't want.  Whether it's pulling on a lead or messing in the house or chewing things.  If you correct the behaviour often enough and consistently you will make a change.

I strongly agree with Jenn, the dominance theory of dog training is *very* old school.  You want your dog to respect you as the leader of his pack, that's true but how you go about gaining that respect can have all the difference in the world.

Since you can see him stare then you have to get in ahead of him locking the stare or acting on it.  One of the ways to do that, one that's recommended here often, is to have him on an 'in house' leash.  If you have the lead attached to you (a belt loop, for example) then you're going to feel something that's different - it's right then that you want to 'change his bahaviour'.  Just having the lead on him helps when he decides to act out - putting a hand in between two dogs is never a good idea.  He may be your dog, but in the excitement, he may not see anything but a hand grabbing at him and bite; with a lead on him, you can disengage them without endangering anyone.

From what you say in your second post, you're doing the right thing (breaking his concentration) you're just not doing it soon enough - you want to stop the behaviour before he has a chance to act (locked in stare) on it.

In addition to Al and Jenn, having a firm controlled voice makes a difference, pick a phrase to work on focus. I use watch me with my gsd, so in my case I say Sofie watch me, breaks her focus and brings it back to me. With huskies, I find that they normally do not believe you are speaking to them, so the use of their names is paramount. Are the obedience classes group classes? If not that is something I would look into, it may not be so much possessiveness, but more in line with reactivity towards other dogs in general. Teaching boundaries like Al mentioned with a leash tether will be most helpful. Some other things to work on, is making him work for things, make him sit and wait to eat, make him sit and wait to go outside, this way you are training him to follow your lead vs him deciding he can do what he wants, this is a much better approach of showing him who's boss than the dominance training that was told to you. Lastly, if after you have done all of this, and he is still unruly, look up "place command" this is a highly effective training command for some dogs who feel they need to be the boss and not you. Good luck, he is a very handsome guy.