new behavior: growling at my wife

[mws]

Hi everyone –

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, but I have a concern about my 16 month-old-gsd.


He’s been doing some troubling growling lately with my wife. A typical situation is that she’ll be sitting at her desk working, he’ll calmly walk over and sleepily put his head on her lap, she’ll pet him and be sweet to him, and then while he’s being petted and is seemingly super calm he’ll let out a very quiet growl for no reason that we can discern. When this happens my wife will disengage, make a little distance, and tell him sternly “No! You do not growl at me!” She’ll then put him through a series of obedience commands. His reaction is to get really excited and race through the commands like he’s trying to make it up to her. It almost seems like he surprises himself with the growls. This only happens once in a while (like once in every 50 times they snuggle) and the growling has never happened with me.


To give you a little background: my wife and I try to split the his care pretty evenly: I feed and exercise him in the mornings and the evenings, but she takes care of him all day since she works from home. He’s been through a few levels of obedience training and we’ve been doing NILIF with him since day one. All of this has helped him to overcome some fearful reactiveness he had when he was younger (always with strangers – growling at us is new), but he’s still clearly a work in progress.

Any suggestions on why this may be happening? It’s not like she’s bothering him or invading his space – usually he’s coming to her!

Any suggestions on how to address it? It’d be a hard behavior to replicate for a behavior list because he does it so sporadically.

Thanks!

[hunterisgreat]

The dog doesn't care about her yelling no... she backed away so he got what he asked for from her. (assuming it was an actual aggressive response directed at her)

Dog growls at me means I immediately let him know that doesn't fly with me. Its a behavior you want to extinguish, not modify. Immediate and strong correction is appropriate I think.

caveat: make sure it was actually an aggressive growl and not just a noise that sounds like one before you start correcting. My male's breathing every once and a while sounds like a muffled growl. Also, make sure it wasn't directed at the other dog, or a bird, or something other than her.

Don't anthropomorphize He's a dog. He wasn't making anything up to her. He just wanted the reward he was expecting after the obedience.

[Jax08]

Are you sure he's growling? Or is he just talking? Jax talks all the time and it could sound like a growl.

On the other hand, be careful about correcting for growling. Growling is a warning. You won't want them to NOT warn you because you've taught them to not growl.

And by immediately going into an obedience drill, you may have taught him that growling at her gets him attention.

[hunterisgreat]

btw... he has no space. All the space in the house is yours and your wife's (except for his kennel, which is his) If my dogs choose to lay in their kennel, I don't bother them as a rule. Everywhere else is mine

[mws]

Thanks for the input so far.

I'm pretty sure it's not any other noise. He is a great source of entertaining yawns and farts and burps and heavy breathing noises, but this is unmistakeable growling. It's quiet and pretty tame sounding compared to his "mailman growl" or his "I-don't-care-if-you-are-the-vet, don't-touch-me-there growl," but it's a growl.

Please do keep the opinions coming.

[Kris10]

Are you sure he is growling? It just doesn't sound like a scenario that would cause a dog to growl. They will make all sorts of sounds to "talk" to you. Sometimes when Max is relaxed and lying down he will make a deep "moo" sound or grunt.

[GSD07]

Did she accidentally touch a painful spot on his body? Ears can be painful when inflamed.

[Lilie]

My GSD has a low 'growl' noise when he is very content. Usually when scratching his face or chest. He'll even close his eyes and enjoy it.

[Emoore]

I agree with the others. It would be very very unusual for a dog to come up to someone, solicit attention, and then growl at them while receiving the attention. My dog makes a low growl when I'm rubbing his head and ears, but it's an expression of pleasure.

[MaggieRoseLee]

Originally Posted by Kris10

Are you sure he is growling? It just doesn't sound like a scenario that would cause a dog to growl. They will make all sorts of sounds to "talk" to you. Sometimes when Max is relaxed and lying down he will make a deep "moo" sound or grunt.

My dogs will do this too....