Dog displaying less than good behavior

[Inuneko]

Sorry for the novel but my girl is starting to display some bad behavior, namely behavior she hasn't done before. I also included how many times it happened. Please don't yell x.x I'd like to know how to fix this behavior and what might be causing it.

Nervousness? Unsure of herself (happened only once) :
My other aunt had company over yesterday, a couple and their three kids. Normally Sissy loves kids, but she seemed pretty scared of them. They're special needs, they're a little slow. She'd bark and growl at them, sort like a worried bark, and I tried to show her they were ok and I showed them how to pet her and let her sniff their hands so she could see it was ok, she let them pet her and didn't voice any complaints. She calmed down and settled down but they must have made her nervous by running around and cutting up since it got her barking and growling all over again. It confused and worried me because she lets the girls handle her kind of rough, and lets toddlers pull on her ears and tail (although if she has enough, she'll just go elsewhere and if they run around like that, she doesn't get nervous). I ended up having to leave for a while and I told my aunt that if she seemed to get distressed, to go put her in the girls' room or in the bathroom so she can have some quiet time to herself, but she told me after I left, Sissy went hide behind her recliner and slept back there until after the company left, minus the daughter who stayed to spend the night. She's sure letting the daughter pet her now. I'd hate to think she was nervous because they're special needs, since my aunt Sharon had to take care of a special needs guy from the homeless shelter for two weeks a few months back while the lady who usually watches him and monitors his medicine was gone out of state. He has a muscle condition that causes him to shake constantly, and she tolerated him, she let him pet her and he didn't make her nervous even though he shook when he went to pet her. That's why I figure either the running around and the noise made her nervous, or there were just too many people around. Do you think reinforcement of socialization is in order?

Continuous barking, semi-rushing at guests when they walk in (10 times, tried to correct it) :
Now that I'm staying at my other aunt's, I'm probably going to move in, but when someone comes over, she barks and gets right at their legs, especially if she doesn't know them. It worries me that she might end up biting them since she's pretty much on them or that they'll panic and kick her, thinking she's going to bite them, or end up tripping them since she's in their feet. Normally she'd just bark and then settle down, she never gotten in their feet like that before. We invite them in, but she still barks at them. I'm starting to keep her on a leash when company comes over.

Hiding food (twice) :
They also got a puppy last week, Sissy and the puppy are doing fine together, but she started hiding food in my aunt's bed, something she's never done before. I'm starting to monitor her eating and pick up anything she has left over, and I also advised my little cousins not to feed her anything, and that if I ok them to give her a treat, they have to watch her and make sure she eats all of it right there and not run off with it. But is she trying to hide her food from the puppy?

Has had previous near-bites (four times) :
She has tried to bite a couple of people before, she has bitten material and pants, although no actual skin contact has happened. She had reason to for the first one, but the others I'm not so sure. One was my ex-uncle, he walked right up to her whelping box a couple of days after she had her first litter even though I told him not to and she got MAD and bit his ankle, but he was wearing work boots, thank god.
The others were a guy my mom invited inside and she just went completely mad, no warning, she just lunged at him and bit his leg (or at least we think she did, we know for sure she bit his pants but he never said if she bit his leg or not) and we had to put her in my bedroom until he left. Another guy she bit his pants and his jacket. And a lady friend of my mom's, she only got her pants too. Also, come to find out that those last three people who I figured gave her no reason to bite them without provoking her, do drugs, which I heard from several reliable sources (the late chief of police himself and several people in the neighborhood). I figure that maybe she smelled the drugs on them, or sensed something bad about them that I couldn't. Since with those people, if they'd walk past by the house, they wouldn't even have be in the yard, she could apparently recognize them by just sight alone and she'd headbutt the window and claw at it like some vicious thing, like she was trying to break through the glass to tear them up, but she has never acted like that towards anyone else. Can anyone suggest a way for me to find out what it was that set her off like that? If it was because she smelled drugs on them or what.

 

[Inuneko]

Chazhound won't let me edit my post. But when we have company over, if she knows them, she's quiet and happy to see them, but she likes to get in their feet a lot so I'm scared she'll trip people.

 

[Doberluv]

It sounds like a lack of or insufficient socialization to unusual people and in general during the critical period. (birth to about 4 months of age) If dogs don't get enough socialization, they don't develop "bounce back" where by if something worries them a little initially, they get right over it. So when anyone who isn't the type of person a puppy saw regularly as a very young puppy comes around, the dog is frightened and can't over come it very easily.

I would recommend you get yourself a good, certified behaviorist to help you. These people who worry her need to be associated with good things like high value treats, never corrections (as in scoldings) for her behavior in their presence. Either the kids need to stop running around or she needs to be kept away from that until she's desensatized to it, if she can be. The things that trigger her behavior or over whelm her need to physically be separated from her...and she needs to be kept from biting or getting under foot. (leash) A systematic desensatizing program will need to be implimented.

I don't think smelling drugs on anyone is going to make a dog go after them unless there has been a negative association with the drugs in the past. Drugs are a neutral substance to a dog.

At any rate, I think from what you describe, your best bet would be to get a good behaviorist to help you. I recommend that you be very careful who you get because a lot of trainers out there are big on yanking choke chains and other forms of punishment which will ruin your dog. You'd need to interview them carefully. Trainers who are knoweldgeable about the science of positive method training, who may or may not use clicker trainers, but who use those concepts would be your best choice.

(you can edit your post for a limited time after you write it, (not sure how long) but then you can't.)

 

[Inuneko]

Yeah, she normally recovers from odd things like that, though. She's pretty tolerating of kids running around and yelling and dropping things and patting her pretty rough, since my mom and my aunt used to babysit toddlers, so that's what confused me about the entire thing. And actually, she's letting the autistic girl pet her as I was about to press post, she's sitting up calmly on her butt with her paws on the girl and being the sweetest thing, and I gave her a baby carrot (she likes them so who am I to tell her she can't have one lol) plenty of praise and a bellyrub.

The hiding food thing is totally new. I'm suspecting she might be hiding it from the puppy, but I'm not positive.

As for my uncle... well... he was warned not to go near her box, momma dog didn't want anyone but me going by her box.

And as the drug people, as far as I know, those people could have been to the house before that I didn't know about (because I found out that my mom had been associating with them). So I figured she might have had them over when I was working or at a friend's for the night, since I thought it kind of odd that she would go for just them like that because she honestly doesn't act like that towards anyone else that I personally associate myself with. It's also equally likely that even if there were no drugs involved, they still must have done something to her for her to go from calm and sweet to wanting to rip them to shreds when she sees them at a distance.

 

[Romy]

I don't think smelling drugs on anyone is going to make a dog go after them unless there has been a negative association with the drugs in the past. Drugs are a neutral substance to a dog.

I don't know about this. Strider LOVES everybody. He's not just neutral, but he really likes people. All people. There have only been two times in his entire life where he got extremely uneasy for no good reason (the one good reason was someone breaking into our apartment).

The first time was at the college at 2 am, and we walked by a group of young men who were standing in a cloud of pot. He did NOT want to walk past them. He tried to lead me into the woods around them and give them a wide berth. When I insisted we walk past them (it was a well lit parking lot in the center of our complex) he walked past with hackles raised and giving them the whale eye. Now, he has never, ever had a negative experience with pot, or any experience before this for that matter. And he is extremely socialized to everything under the sun for his work, and that was the one "neutral substance" that he's reacted to badly. Which he really shouldn't have because he always takes new things with excitement and happiness.

I doubled back a couple of times and gave him treats, and one of the guys asked if they could pet him so they gave him some treats. He still hates pot, but he doesn't act hostile around it any more.

The second time he was uneasy around a person was when my husband brought his autistic clients home for pizza. Strider was petrified. Dogs are sensitive to subtle body language and body movements, and if they have never been exposed to someone like that before they do not know how to read them. It's unfamiliar, the jerky movements can be threatening to the dog. By the end of the evening he loved them, but his intial reaction was to body block Aurelia and I from them.

Personally, I wouldn't fault a mother dog for being defensive of her puppies. The other situations are very unsafe for her though. It's true you don't know whether those guys may have hurt her when you weren't around, but if she were to bite them that would not matter to animal control. Maybe they haven't done anything, and she just doesn't like their smell. If it was me I'd be putting her up whenever they are over, and do what doberluv suggests and get a good behaviorist to help you desensitize her and build her confidence so she can feel safer in unfamiliar situations.

 

[Doberluv]

Interesting. Well, maybe something about them smelled really awful to your dog. Conversely, my dogs have been around people (a few of my son's past friends) who had drugs on them. And my son's dog has really been around it more. And they acted perfectly friendly and were not visably affected by them.

Dogs don't know that drugs are illegal and dangerous and that we, as certain members in society find them vile. If they smell vile to a particular dog or have some other negative connotation like for example, Chlorox or amonia would, then naturally, a dog may react to them. It's probably an individual thing.

 

[Romy]

That's definitely possible. Pot aside, they all could have used a shower :rofl1:. It was pretty stanky, and that much smoke probably didn't smell all that great to him.

One thing a friend of mine has suggested, and she said it is controversial among the SAR crowd, is the theory that people who are doing something wrong/illegal, or people who are distressed/stressed (lost, scared, etc) leave a different smell that the dogs pick up on.

She has noticed that when they are on a real life search mission, or an evidence search, is certain dogs will often ignore more recent human activity and go straight for the missing person, or straight for things that were used in a crime, even though they don't have a scent article to begin with to tell them that is the individual who is lost, or give them the scent of the perpetrator. If it is true it may be an individual dog thing as not all the dogs do it, and the dogs that do it don't do it every single time, though those individuals do it the majority of the time (if that makes sense). Nobody has done any scientific study on it either way, it's just anecdotal.

If it is true, that would explain why some well socialized dogs sense "bad people" and react. How they react would depend on their socialization, defensive vs. offensive drives, etc.

However, I never let my dog decide who is and isn't bad for me. I trust him, and take his reactions to people into account but he is on no account allowed to behave in an anti social way based on his perception of someone, unless a person is in physical danger.

For the OP, this means that you need to make the decisions for your dog, and your dog needs to understand that you are the one who decides who is and isn't welcome in your home. She needs to be confident, and trust you to take care of her so she doesn't go into self defense mode when she feels threatened.

One way to help if you aren't doing so already, is to practice NILIF (nothing in life is free). By learning that you and the rest of her human family are the providers of everything good and wonderful in her life, it builds a foundation of trust and respect. I don't know why she might be hiding food right now, but at the very least it will allow you to control when and how she gets all her food and treats so that she doesn't get the opportunity to hide it. She will need specific training to help with the issue of going after those guys, and for an issue like that it needs to come from somebody who can see her in person. I am glad she is already getting along with the special needs kids, that is encouraging.

 

[Inuneko]

Yeah, I figured the running around might have just made her nervous at first since she's never been around special needs people before. I was really surprised she was so loving and friendly to Jerry (the one that had the muscle disease that made him shake) when she first met him. Sure she was a little wary because she didn't know what to make of it, but she warmed up to him fast, because she let him pet her and she laid down with him at night until he fell asleep. But yeah, I am glad she's getting along with the girl.

I am monitoring her eating until I figure out why she might be hiding food. Her son did the same with her chew bone after he ate his, he grabbed hers and ran off with it and shoved it in between the cushions of my aunt's recliner.

And yes, I will keep her on a leash when we have company, at least until she calms down since I don't want her to trip anyone or get stepped on and end up biting, or get kicked from someone assuming she intends to bite them. I'll keep treats next to me and reward her for good behavior, she seems to catch on fairly fast.

About the three people she tried to bite with seemingly no provocation, I think I should assume that they did indeed go to the house at earlier dates and did something that made her act like that. But it can't be a coincidence, I don't think. There was a guy that came to see my mom but she went outside to meet him and Sissy went nuts, at first I thought she wanted out but she was 'attacking' the window (she probably recognized the car). Then when my mom came back, she gave my mom the whale eye and slunk away from her and insisted we go in my room. I found out later that the guy was known to sell crack, he's in jail now though, thankfully.

The only thing I can honestly think of to find out whether it's because she can smell drugs on them or not is to talk to the chief and tell him what happened, and see if he would be willing to let me bring Sissy to the police station and they show her one of the toys they scent train their dogs with.