Jealous Malamute

[Flashsmum]

I hope someone may be able to give me a few hints!

My parents adopted a malamute in October last year. He is three and half years old, and a real sweetie. At the time, I had my great dane and greyhound, and all the dogs got on well when visiting or having sleepovers at each others places. In January, our great dane was put to sleep, and since then we've only got our greyhound, who is a male.

Since Flash left us, Mali (malamute) has been very jealous of Harry (our greyhound). When I visit my parents place, Mali herds Harry away from everyone, and always gets between Harry and whoever may be paying him attention. He is always trying to get on my lap, and pushes Harry away from me. When I'm not there, (when Harry has a sleepover) apparently he is not so bad, but if my parents pay any attention to Harry, Mali interferes again. He hasn't gotten aggrressive, but is very forceful. Harry is very timid natured, and just turns his head away, and yawns, and then goes and lies down by himself. This didn't appear to be problem when Flash was around, but she was the "boss" with all the family dogs, and quite strong natured.

Is there anything my parents can try to do to lessen Mali's jealousy? When he gets in my face and pushes Harry away from me, they call him to them, and then put him is sit or down stay, and hold onto him if need be. My Mum is very good with him, and he listens to her. Our Harry stays at Mum's and Dad's if we ever go away overnight or a few days, so it would be good if this could be nipped in the bud. Apparently he also doesn't like my parents greeting other dogs when they are out walking him, and always gets between them, and pushes the other dogs away. The worry is that another dog may react badly to this.

Sorry for the longwinded tale, but I would appreciate any tips.

Ta!

Jaana

I posted this in the training section, had no luck, so trying here!

[Kirty]

I was always told that dog's can't be jealous, and that what we percieve as jealousy is actually dominance? Not sure if I believe that though! Sorry, that didn't help! LOL!

[Flashsmum]

Thanks Kirty, I thought that may be the case as well, but wasn't sure!

[corvus]

It's a tricky thing. I started to write a reply to this yesterday and gave up when I realised I a) didn't have enough time and b) wasn't being very systematic. I think I'll just put down some ideas and you can take them or leave them.

*Consider that your parents calling the dog to them when he is acting up is actually a reward to him. If he's acting this way because he wants attention, then he just got it.

* Sometimes I think this is a form of resource guarding. Often with resource guarding I think you can improve things by making the dog feel more secure. If they aren't afraid of losing their resource to another dog, then there's no need for them to be so guardy. Unfortunately, with resource guarding of human attention it's difficult to convince a dog that another dog won't take you from them. Especially if that dog is a bit needy and would gladly take as much attention as you can give him and still want more. Maybe spending more time with the jealous dog will make them feel less jealous, but maybe it will make them feel more jealous. It's a hard one. I have one dog that the more time you spend with him the more time he wants to spend with you. I wouldn't treat jealousy in a dog like that by spending more time with him, obviously, but I did do just that with another dog I had and it certainly helped.

*It's possible he's anxious for some reason. I think that it's often useful to give an animal more structure in their life. If you tell him what he should do instead of pushing the other dog around and then reward him for it, then not only do you get improved behaviour in that one situation, but you teach your dog that you've got the answers and all they need to do is follow your lead. That can be easily generalised.

*It's also possible it's misplaced territorial guarding sort of behaviour, in which case telling him what he should be doing and rewarding him for it also might help.

*I think it's important that you teach him that he can share his people. I've heard various methods involving only patting the dog when the other dog is also being patted and things like that. It might help. My little guy thinks he should bite my big guy's legs when I'm hugging the big guy. He can't do that when he's on his back getting rubs while I'm simultaneously hugging the big guy. You can also try body-blocking, which might even work on a dog that big, but then again, it might not. It might make him feel more insecure about it all.

*It's probably worthwhile to get a professional to see the Mal in action to get to the bottom of just what is causing the behaviour. If you don't know what's causing it you'll only ever be managing symptoms. Teaching him what he should do around other dogs is a good start, though. I'd ask for him to sit beside me and hold that position when I'm talking to another dog. I'd reward him heaps, with lots of attention and food if he's into food.

[Flashsmum]

Thanks corvus. All good food for thought.

[sas]

I'd actually put him in his place rather than just asking obedience routines from him.

[corvus]

I'd actually put him in his place rather than just asking obedience routines from him.

That's a fair call, but it's addressing symptoms. Maybe you'll be able to suppress the symptoms, maybe you will just contribute to an underlying sense of insecurity and make them worse. The advantage of obedience routines, or asking any behaviour that you can then reward, is that you give the dog something else to do, and possibly change their focus. You then reward them, which not only strengthens your relationship with them, but alleviates stress normally related to the situation.

My last dog used to get quite possessive. I'd get up and turn my back and say "If you can't be nice I don't want to talk to you." I kid you not, she would storm off and sulk under the house. Fine by me, but the thing is, it didn't make any difference in the long run. It didn't change her behaviour. For a while I tried cutting in with verbal reprimands before she got a chance to snark. That worked in that it interrupted her and we'd be all right as long as I was watching, but it didn't fix the problem either. Grumping at her after the fact only ever resulted in her taking out her frustration on the poor dog she was harrassing in the first place. She'd get a time out and it didn't make a shred of difference except that she'd snap and then cower, waiting to be told to leave the house. The only thing that actually reduced her attempts to snark at other dogs was giving her more one-on-one attention. But like I said, I wouldn't do that with one of my current dogs.

[Flashsmum]

Thanks Sas. How do you mean? ie physically put him where you want him?

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

OMG

I agree with Corvus on this one. I think it's the malamute guarding resources, including his people.

There are a number of different ways of addressing it. The main one would be to make sure he doesn't get rewarded with the very resouce that he's trying to protect by behaving unacceptably. At the same time, you don't want to make him feel more insecure about it.

So if he's going to herd the greyhound and that's unacceptable, put him on lead and prevent him. And while one person pats the greyhound, maybe the other could feed treats and distract the malamute, so he eventually associates the greyhound getting a pat with "good things". I wouldn't put the malamute on lead and let someone else pat the greyhound without rewarding the malamute for behaving nicely though. Or his worst fears would be coming true in front of him, and that could make him act worse.

Theoretically the malamute should have priortity to resouces & pats in his own household over a visitor so it may help to make sure that happens, but only as long as the malamute behaves politely.

If the malamute can't behave, it may require separating them. I'd be thinking time out (from his precious human resources) in a crate and then making him work to earn his rewards/resources. But this is tricky to manage well. It may be more reassuring/rewarding for the malamute if the greyhound gets limited access instead and the greyhound would be protected by being separated. But this may re-inforce the obnoxious behaviour on the malamute's part. You'd have to do some careful dog management and watching to figure out the best path.