Dog possessive of me?

[Cessena]

So I've started taking my husky Vlad to the dog park. It has been pretty good, he still has issues with very small dogs (who are supposed to be in the "small dog area" anyway) but I've been keeping an eye on him and just trying to avoid that situation for now. (He seems to view smaller dogs as toys? I don't know if this is something we can fix.)

Anyway, in addition to that delightful issue which we were already aware of, I have discovered another problem. If I pet any dog that is not him he will growl at that dog. Of course, I can avoid this issue by simply not petting other dogs. But he does not seem to care if my boyfriend pets other dogs, or if other dogs are getting attention, it is only me.

Is there any way to remedy this? I don't want to encourage him by letting him boss me around. But I also don't want to risk any escalation of this behavior with strange dogs.

I can't really have treats at the dog park, every dog in the place follows me around, so it just doesn't work out. Any suggestions for ways to handle this besides just not petting other dogs that approach me? I know it is an easily avoidable issue, but it concerns me that it could be a symptom of a larger isssue.

(We already practice NILIF and he is fine with me interacting with our cats with him around, or being intimate with my boyfriend. It is really only other dogs that he does this with.)

 

[lizzybeth727]

I've worked with dogs like this, it's definately very annoying!

What I would suggest is to find some way to reward Vlad when you are petting other dogs. Of course treats would be nice, but if he likes toys or anything else you can be creative about what to use. You could even pet another dog, just one or two quick strokes, and then go and give some really good scratches to Vald, so that he starts to learn that when you give attention to another dog, he's going to get really good stuff. Don't spend a lot of time petting other dogs at this point, just do quick pats and then move on, and only one or two each time you go to the park. As he begins to get used to it, you could start giving the other dogs longer scratches.