Dog Intimidating Other Dog In Household

[Kavik]

My brother is coming here to Australia from the USA and while he is here, my mum is looking after his dog. She also has a dog. Both are female crossbreeds, about the same size (medium sized solid dogs, around 20kg). They have lived together before. They are having a couple of issues with the two dogs together. My mum's dog is intimidating my brother's dog away from resources, such as when people want to pat the dog (including when my brother wants to pat his own dog), toys, and my brother's dog's bed. No actual fights, but posturing and my brother's dog will leave when intimidated. They are trying to fix the issue before my brother comes to Australia.

Any suggestions? I had the same problem with Zoe intimidating Diesel away from me, but I'm not sure how it got fixed.

I have suggested management for now until we come up with a plan - separate when they cannot be watched, try to have two people around so that someone can control my mum's dog so she doesn't get a chance to intimidate, work on recall, work on a go to bed behaviour

[RuralPug]

Actually this could either be resource guarding or simple dominance posturing (bitches aren't called bicthes for nothing!) or even a combination of the two. Given that your brother's dog is currently accepting the intimidation, it may not escalate to fights - but I agree with you that a plan should be put into place so that your mother's bossy boots learns that people set the rules in the household and their whims are law and intimidation/resource guarding is not approved.

With the bed, if these two dogs are expected to sleep in separate beds, then it is up to the people in the household to reinforce this and make sure that each dog's bed is her own sacred place that the other is not to intrude upon. One gets in the wrong bed, immediate and firm removal to her own bed is required. It may help to move the beds occassionally so they understand that it is the bed and and not the spot that is their own. They may have more than one bed each, in separate rooms or whatever.

I like your plan, except the part about a third party controlling the intimidation this will not teach anything. We need to reward any GOOD behaviour and send disdainful body language messages or "go to bed" commands for POOR behavior. So any second person should be about rewarding/responding rather than controlling if that makes sense.

Another tip is to always include your brother's dog in activities that your mother's dog particularly likes (car rides/couch snuggles/games/treat training sessions ot whatever) so that she comes to associate the second dog with feeling good.

[Kavik]

Thanks, those are good suggestions.

Some things I am thinking:

* rewarding my mum's dog for being on the bed while the other dog gets patted by someone. So position someone near my mum's dog's bed and food rewards for staying there while the other dog gets patted

* Have both dogs a distance apart both getting food rewards from someone, slowly move closer together til they can get treats next to each other and from the same person

[corvus]

It's a low level form of resource guarding, because little escalation is required. Resource guarding often stems to some degree from anxiety (he's going to get my stuff!). I'd counter-condition. You get MORE stuff when the other dog is nearby. Be careful not to rob the guarding dog of her sense of control of the situation before she is ready to relinquish it. As it stands, she has control of the situation because the other dog defers to her. It no doubt eases her anxiety about having another dog near her things. If you ease it by building a positive association with the dog being near her things and her getting more things, then her tolerance will increase and control will hopefully seem less critical to her.