Hi - As always the longer I have my Puli - 4 months now - the more I learn about his behaviour.  In the beginning I thought he was outright aggressive but I've been educated and realise he isnt.  The latest I have noticed is that he seems to be quite protective to me.  Today for example - early morning 0700 - we were at the park as every morning and he has a lovely off lead run.  As we finish our walk he runs to a little footbridge over a stream and waits for me - today while he was waiting a springer spaniel came up to him and they greeted each other happily and were walking around each other for about a minute or just under until I got there.  As soon as I got up to them and the spaniel decided to say hello to me - my dog started barking - not nastily but as if to say leave her alone she's mine.  I have noticed a few times now that if another dog gets close to me he will bark at them.  My question is I assume I should discourage this and if so has anybody else had to do this?  I have assumed up until now it was the dog getting close to him he didnt like - now I think it may be dogs getting near me. 

thanks

Maxine

i dont know the answer to your question but possiblyhave a similar scenario, my dog is quite good with other dogs until i am there as well and then he tries to dominate them, its as if he is empowered by my presence, trouble is dogs ofton come over, possibly because i carry food for trainign(and choccy for myself) and then i have to fend of the visiting dogs and watch mine for bolshiness at the same time, it keeps me busy           :rolleyes:

Hi

This is something you need to nip in the bud before it gets to be a problem, I dont know your breed at all hopefully someone that does will be able to help more.

But i had a GSD who was very protective of me. He was well socialised as a pup with other dogs but he started to get aggressive with them. I think it was my fault though he got worse. I was terriefied because of his size he would do serious damage. So when ever I saw a dog coming towards us I would tense up and put him on a shorter lead. he was intelligent to suss this and then saw every dog as a threat to me. I didnt realise until the damage was done and he was totally dog aggressive. When a trainer pointed this out to me it was so obvious. If I had stopped him as a pup I wouldnt of had the problems I did with him.

Do you go to a training class. I would recomend one were he will meet other dogs and learn to interact with them

Wendy

I can't tell you how to fix it but I can say that we have a few people at our training clubs working through this with their dogs that exhibit jealous or protective behaviour. They leave their dog with someone else or tied up to the fence, and go to stroke another dog. If their dog is calm they get rewarded for that.

Thank you for those replies - I havent been able to get to training classes for about 3 weeks but will be going back this weekend.  I will try the walking away to see another dog and reward if he is good. 

Max

I'm another one who can't help you but am also interested to hear of solutions offered to you.  My sister's BC is something like that.  He will happily play the live-long day with any other dog, until Sis tries to pet it.  Then he will try to kill it.  It seems more like jealousy (now called resource guarding?) than protectiveness.  It was very hard for him to accept my dog when we got her.  They are great friends now but he seems to know she belongs to the family and Sis has not been able to get him to accept non-family dogs.  Sis just doesn't try to pet any other dogs now, not even the one they regularly walk with.

Hi Jetstone Jewel,

I have managed to get him to accept dogs that we meet on a regular basis.  If they are friends so it can be arranged - we have to do a few walks where we walk in the same direction with a small distance between us and the dogs on the outsides - gradually through the walk getting closer and then letting the dogs get closer.  With mine it only took a couple of walks like this for him to be okay about it but still go through these stages at every walk.  There are some dogs at the park that we meet on a regular basis and I have built up by saying hello how are you from a distance and then each time we meet a bit closer and a bit longer.  But still a strange dog that we have never seen - we couldnt just walk up to them etc - everything has to be slowly slowly and built up.  Although I will say we have improved even with complete strange dogs to the stage where he isnt as ferocious sounding as he used to be - I can still tell though that he just doesnt like bouncy dogs - if they bounce around him or race up to me he will get very 'vocal'.......

Before we leave any dogs that we have walked with or met I do ask both/all of them to sit - give them both/all a treat and a pat - so that does get him used to me touching the other dogs - he gets the treat first so is quite happy while he is having his that I am patting the other...

Hope some of this may help.....

Maxine

You are doing much better than my sister then.  Her dog is now 14 and a half so at this stage of the game I think she is not even bothering to work on it anymore.  The friend and dog they regularly walk with is far worse, really.  That dog is a Soft Coated Wheaten (just so you get an idea of size, strength etc, not to malign the whole breed) and he is NASTY.  He attacks people as well as dogs and the owner has had him to special trainers, behaviouralists.  But I think she needs to do more work with him herself, as you are, not just hire other people to do it.  It's a wonder the last boy he bit did not take it up with the police.  Good for you.

Thats nice of you to say so - I was thinking I was a terrible failure....  

please dont think your a failure, while you are working so hard on this you are a huge sucess(although it may not feel like it all the time!), many dog owners give up when faced with a behavioual issue, and then they have failed the dog.