How to get Mika to stop guarding me
I need a little advice.
For those of you who don't know me, I have a 4 year old male Kai Koda and a 14 month old female Kai Mika.
Over the last couple of months Mika and I have gotten really close. Koda injured himself and unfortunately had to have surgery. Before that, she was very close to him. I would say he was her world. But with him down, it was just her and I. She's bonded with me more than Koda now. Which may be temporary as he is back up and off restrictions.
But for now she is resource guarding me. If another dog walks up to me she growls and goes after them. Nothing too serious, but not a behavior I approve of. I can control outside dogs, but now she's started doing it with Koda. This is where I draw the line, and she knows that this behavior means I ignore her. She gets no reinforcement from me.
Has anyone had any experience with one dog not wanting the other one near you? Koda is the sweetest dog, and this would never cause a fight because he's very sensitive to her needs and boundaries. It's just well excuse my frankness but asshole behavior that I don't want to see from my cute little girl.
Any advice is welcome. :-)
For those of you who don't know me, I have a 4 year old male Kai Koda and a 14 month old female Kai Mika.
Over the last couple of months Mika and I have gotten really close. Koda injured himself and unfortunately had to have surgery. Before that, she was very close to him. I would say he was her world. But with him down, it was just her and I. She's bonded with me more than Koda now. Which may be temporary as he is back up and off restrictions.
But for now she is resource guarding me. If another dog walks up to me she growls and goes after them. Nothing too serious, but not a behavior I approve of. I can control outside dogs, but now she's started doing it with Koda. This is where I draw the line, and she knows that this behavior means I ignore her. She gets no reinforcement from me.
Has anyone had any experience with one dog not wanting the other one near you? Koda is the sweetest dog, and this would never cause a fight because he's very sensitive to her needs and boundaries. It's just well excuse my frankness but asshole behavior that I don't want to see from my cute little girl.
Any advice is welcome. :-)
Comments
That got me thinking though. Maybe I do reinforce her tough girl behavior because she's my little girl and she's so cute.
How about walking away from her and giving Koda attention? Maybe this might enflame the problem, but it seems to work with Goro and ChoCho when Goro is guarding toys, chews, or the bed. If he growls over a bone I have him drop it, give it to ChoCho for a minute and then return it to him. When he guards our bed, I have him get off and put ChoCho on it. He seems to have caught on that when he guards something the opposite thing from what he wants happens.
Also when ChoCho get protective over me while I'm at my sister's house I break up the tension by have all the dogs (including my sister's dog) do tricks with me. The whole taking turns when taking treats and praises has helped them get along.
Anyway, hope something in here helps.
@tjbart Sachi has only done that with me with my parents dog. I would have a fun game of watch me play with koda and not you everytime she does.
I've tried the giving Koda attention and not her. Mostly because Koda is sensitive and I coddle him. It didn't work. She just looks at me blankly. But her reaction stays the same the next time.
I actually need to try time outs but it hasn't seemed like I could put her anywhere but her crate given the location. Also if I grab her collar, I'm afraid she will displace anger and go after him. Mika does not do well with physical or spacial pressure. She goes on the defensive when she feels any pressure.
She also guards me when I'm asleep and it wakes me up. I'm not the best at waking up quickly to deal with it.
I'm sitting on the couch and Mika comes and sits on my lap. She's like a cat. :-) I hold her and rub her belly. Koda was napping in the bedroom. Then Koda walks in the living room and Mika jumps up to growl. I let go of her and walk into the kitchen. She stops immediately. Koda walks into the living room and lays down. Two minutes later she walks over, kisses Koda, and lays down with him. There's no argument or hard feelings. I'm out of the equation and all is good.
My problem is still the reaction.
PS this gets really bad with Mei coming up to me but we don't live with her so right now I want to work on the Koda situation since I can completely avoid the guarding me from Mei.
It would be a tricky bit of business and might be better with a professional trainer as a guide, but if you're able to catch Mika right before it escalates you could change her feelings about you + Koda and eventually you + other dogs.
Check out this Dr. Sophia Yin video which talks about counter-conditioning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI13v9JgJu0
I just tried it and it worked. Let's see if I can continue it and associate Koda walking in with everyone getting love like when I come home.
I walk away, and I also make the "aah aah aaah" sound when he does it. Usually that's all we need, but with guests, I've sometimes just got the other dogs out of the way, which I realize now probably reinforces his behavior. Luckily, it doesn't happen very often, and last time people came over, I had separate reintros for everyone, with Oskar coming down last with no other dogs. Once he's over the initial excitement, he doesn't do it anymore. (the last time someone came over though, it was our friends who also often housesit, and he was so excited he peed! He hasn't done that since he was a puppy!)
I know you can't really do that with Mika though, so I guess getting up is the best strategy? And I do like your idea of giving them both attention, too, so it's a good thing.
Here's an example to teach loose leash walking via negative punishment and positive reinforcement (takes a lot of patience, but it works in most cases):
-Dog pulls heavily on leash during walks. This is because it wants to get somewhere, smell something, see new things.
-Every time the dog pulls at the very end of the leash, stop walking. The dog wants to go somewhere and is pulling to get it, you've removed the reward of getting to go somewhere hence negative punishment.
-The second the dog stops pulling or allows the leash go slack at all, start walking forward. The loose leash is a behavior that you want and indicates that you will begin to walk, which is what the dog wants so you've positively reinforced it.
-The time it takes a dog to learn this is variable based on personality, age, etc., but ultimately they'll get what you're doing and you can teach this without saying a word or giving a treat since for most dogs the walk is enough of a reward. Obviously the younger you start the better because 90 lbs Akita that wants to go over there is harder to stop than the same dog as a puppy would've been.
Well we had one good experience and one growl today. Mika let's herself out of her crate at night and climbs in bed with Koda and I. Usually at that time Koda will get off the bed and go to his own. In the morning where we have had problems the past week, Koda will usually come up to the edge of the bed and wake me up. This morning when he did it I got all excited and started loving on both of them. Mika got all happy and no growling. Good girl.
Fifteen minutes later I was putting on my running shoes. This tells the dogs we are going out for a walk so Mika got excited. Usually both of them will inconveniently want me to pet them while putting on my shoes. I ignored Mika completely and Koda walked in the room. There it was growl and snarl. I told Mika uh uh got up and walked out not giving any of them attention at all.
The thing is her growling hurts Koda's feelings. He is uber sensitive and loves Mika but also what is happening is that he doesn't even want to play with her now because of it. He's a no conflict kind've dog. And Mika doesn't get why Koda won't play or kiss her. Umm cause you're mean Mika Monster. Ha ha ha.
If it keeps up, Id be happy to take Koda off your hands hahah
She seems to be fine off leash, but there are strict laws about that kind of stuff here, so I can't walk her off leash like I used to.
So, I don't have a protective dog, I have a dog that wants ME to protect HER...
Get one of your parents or friends to approach from a distance. The second she starts to look worried, give her a treat or better yet give a 'sit' command and then treat for the sit. That way she's also working for you. It'll help take her mind off the thing that she's worried about. Better yet, watch Dr Sophia Yin do it with a dog that gets aggressive when fearful, which makes me think it might be good for you too @brittk:
It's just about building enough positive experiences to outweigh the negative ones the dog has had and making sure you're replacing unwanted behavior with something appropriate.
Thank you for the advice. I have just been telling people she's shy because she sometimes will bristle up as well.
A big part of the training will be learning to recognize where on the continuum of reactivity they are at any particular moment. You have to be able to catch them right before they go out of their minds with fear and stop being able to listen to what you have to say. Then you can start changing their minds about the situation by changing their underlying mental/emotional state, but once they have started shrinking away or barking/lunging they no longer have control or reasoning ability until they calm down again. That's the emergency state Dr. Yin is talking about in the above video.
A behaviorist can help you recognize those signs and give you steps to improve the situation for your pups. The alternative is them living in fear every time they go for a walk or have to share attention with someone else as in @tjbart17 case and I know none of us want that for our dogs.
Our two are very bonded, but on occasion (with no triggers we have been able to identify) they start resource guarding me. Most of the time they can and both will have their heads in my lap at the same time, each snuggling a different side, but when they try this and end up snarking we do time outs and they're back to normal in 30 seconds. Since we haven't been able to identify the trigger, we also haven't been doing counter conditioning. This happens maybe once a year now so I think that thr time outs have helped.
One thing that might sound strange, but be worth a try, is also talking to them. My girl is very good at picking up on the nuances of vocal intonations. Whenever we see her getting worked up, we tell her to relax and then ask her why she's so grumpy. It sounds odd, but it diffuses the tension a bit, and while she might grumble, she doesn't cross the excitement threshold the way she has in the past. It's been surprisingly effective. Given how sensitive kai seem to be to people, I'm betting they also might respond to speech well.
I know she was still somewhat shy, but at least she didn't bristle up and hide behind me. Is this ok, or am I going about this the wrong way? I'm trying, but we just moved really far away from all of our friends and family. I don't really know anyone around here yet that could help me on a regular basis, but I want Shelby to be ok. I don't know where this came from... It was like an overnight change. I've always tried to socialize her well and in a good way with dogs and people. She loves other dogs, but there's nothing that I know of that could have caused this fear with people. Everyone just adores her. Could bringing Mya with us help? Mya LOVES everyone and can't wait to meet new people.