Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've been on here.

I've had Pippa for about 5 and a half years now and brought another dog into the home in December. Pippa has always loved other dogs and has never had any kind of resource guarding issues before. This continued to be the case when we brought Indy home in December.

Indy is ~1 year old, a GSD mix, and very close in size to Pippa. Tolerates Pippa's mouthiness very well and has no resource guarding issues. We are very lucky!

Things were going very well (as far as things were concerned with the two of them-Indy is a handful overall!) until a week or two ago. Pippa snapped at Indy (more than just a casual "hey this is mine") over a bone a few weeks ago and I thought it was strange, but let it go because it was a one time occurrence.

However, since then she's been more snappy with Indy and with us. I've always been able to take bones and toys away from her easily, even with Indy here, but she snapped at me the other day. She just been generally more lethargic and not herself this week. I try to still do things one on one with her, but I'm also trying not to anthropomorphize her too much. As much as she might act like a human, she is still a dog!

I plan on getting her an appointment with the vet next week to hopefully run some tests/rule anything medical out, but I wanted to see if any of you with two dogs had any advice. It seems odd that over 4 months in she starts to exhibit this behavior, but what do I know!

Any help is appreciated!

Hi Katie, nice to see ya here again Are they both fixed? If not that may need to be done, altho it doesn't always solve the problem. I have 2 females Miya is my husky mix and is about the same age as Pippa and Sofie my gsd will be 3 in August. I do have the issue from time to time and in your case I assume that Pippa understands that Indy is part of the family, the newness has worn off. Do you crate them when giving high value treats? I would that solves most issues concerning high value treats. I don't so in my case I am very strict and firm and place the girls away from each other and monitor until treat is finished. I also hand feed both of them side by side from time to time in order for them to be comfy that each will get their share as long as they comply to my commands, sit, be gentle, wait, etc. In all honesty I believe it is a form of dominance, for the pack hierarchy, Pippa was first and she is letting Indy know that she ranks above and she is below her. Doing things together, like walks should help, along with my suggestion of hand feeding and separation when feeding high value treats. I am lucky my gsd is very submissive and she understands my huskies body language. Working together as a team along with one on one should help.

Being not herself/lethargic is a bit worrisome, I hope she is ok.

I believe any household with 2 or more dogs will experience a squabble here and there over things viewed as high value, like bones for example, no matter how tightly bonded they are. I've had pairs of Huskies my entire life, and they've all been super close, but once in awhile a squabble would happen out of the blue. Usually when they are younger. I think the only exception was my brother and sister pair.

Ok, so with that being said, I had a similar situation with my current two, Kohdi and Mishka. I had Kohdi by himself for a year, then I got Mishka, and things were still good for probably a year, year and a half of Mishka. Then, all of a sudden Kohdi became a resource guarder. Honestly, I was pretty shocked! He has always been the most easy going dog, always letting Mishka take whatever she wanted from him. One day he snapped at her for trying to take a bone from him, then growled at me if I was too close to his bone for his comfort. It started happening more often then.  It was most likely a failing on my part, for letting Mishka just take stuff from him whenever, or not, who knows, but I didn't like this behavior and wanted my old Kohdi back ! I started by giving Mishka her treat in one room and taking Kohdi to another room. When handing Kohdi his treat, I held onto it for a bit, letting him get some nibbles in, but pulling it back every once in awhile and then handing it back to him so he would see I didn't want it. I'd also sit with him on the floor while he chewed his bone, I'd stay busy on my iPad or whatever, but I'd pet him every once in awhile and tell him he's a good boy. He would instantly do that thing where he'd "guard" but didn't growl or snap, I'd go back to what I was doing, and he would relax again. I did this for awhile, it wasn't a speedy process. When I'd tell him he was done now, and wanted the bone back, he'd guard, sometimes growl, but I'd trade him his bone for a treat he liked. Kohdi isn't very treat motivated so it was probably a combination of wanting the particular treat, and being done with the bone himself, just not wanting to really give it up, but he would accept the trade. I'll also say that if Mishka came near at all while Kohdi had his treat, I'd tell her "get back" if she got too close. It taught Mishka some manners, and let Kohdi know I was there to make sure Mishka wouldn't take what was his. As I mentioned, it took a little while, mostly because bones and stuff are not a really common thing here, but Kohdi is his old self again, they can share treats, they can lay side by side and eat their treats, Kohdi can and will walk away from his treat while Mishka is right next to it, and I can ask him for his treat back and he drops it, then I take his treat and put it away til the next time. In my mind, it took some time to get Kohdi to become a resource guarder, so I invested some time to make it go away. And it paid off !

Last week Grant (2.5 years) and Sophia (5 mos) watched as I placed all bones and horns on the fireplace mantle.

Grant finally had enough of Sophia taking bones away and began coming after hers as if teaching her a lesson. He was calm about it, but she began resource guarding (frantic growls, not play growls). When I say, "stop" they stop, and I still supervise constantly, but it's not worth the risk.

Grant rarely cares about a chewbone but did defend a forgotten one outside (he takes his on the porch) and pawed at Sophia's face. She was on the leash, as she always is outside, so it wasn't a big issue, but startled her. I guess he's decided she's big enough to learn some manners, since she's over half his size now.

I hold bones while they calmly chew in turns, and give them treats for sitting together, but the high value treats will have to be fed separately. Grant is a fixed male, but I am letting Sophia go into heat once before she is fixed and don't want things to escalate.

Grant's relaxed manner has allowed a very close bond, with Grant finally seeking attention/petting from me (yay!) because he sees how cuddly Sophia is. She is cuddly, but she really needs the contact.

Grant is doing great in agility (he won farm eggs from the trainer last week in a timed trial), and still runs his 5K with me every day. Sophia started puppy classes a couple of weeks ago, and as I suspected has too much prey drive to run off-leash with the little dogs after class. (Huskies do play rough, but my two are perfectly matched.) She walks/trains about a mile a day.

I mention the training and running because I think it helps with their energy level in the house, and prevents resource guarding over stuffed animals--Sophia kind of has the hang of tug-of-war, and Grant is patient.

With Z'ev's serious resource guarding history and Archer, the grandpuppy, having resource guarding tendencies, I don't tolerate anything along those lines.  They have to sit before they get their dinner or any treats...which becomes somewhere between a Chinese fire drill and a circus act on steroids!  There are NO toys though that's not a huge issue anyway 'cause except for Archer, are not really interested.  We have some issues with Archer, a bit less with Z'ev but still present, with guarding who gets to be next to us on the bed.  Archer plasters himself across Wayne's mid-section and growls which gets a firm, no-nonsense, immediate correction.

I hate being so regimented but I would hate even more for one of them to get a serious injury and me a huge vet bill.  The regimentation does have its perks, though...they really are cute when I'm holding a chicken/sweet potato strip and I say sit and three fluffies plop there asses down PDQ as if they are Marines

The giving of treats one by one really helped us...sort of a trick or treat deal.