Odd ? protective traits from my rescue dog

[JessandJackson]

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Hi all - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Majority of you are aware of my Jackson posts (the obsessed with kids issue mainly) and if not - he is a 7 month old EBT X lurcher that I adopted myself from Battersea coming up 2 months back.

I am very much anticipating the lady calling me back from junior pup training and getting me booked in for my 6-week course as I feel emotions are really running high in our household at the moment.

So, I live with my boyfriend however, I picked Jackson up myself and the first night home with him - my boyfriend came home to greet him. Then - I had 2 solid weeks off of work with him (whilst my boyfriend worked) - but I just did this to help the bond form and also the fact I didn't want to just throw him into being left vs a dog walker.
I know - I probably should have actually taken my bf with me as I feel like I have engrained into him that it's "me and Jackson... THEN my boyfriend" and that is something I have never ever wanted. I am only feeling this way as there have now been x 2 episodes of what I can only label as protection vs the fact he may have PTS from the previous owners/family because I recall the Battersea report stating he was jealous of wife / husband and became protective of the wife. Anyway - first episode was yesterday. He had his walks, breakfast etc and me & BF were sitting eating toast. We don't have a dining table as it is so we have to usually sit/wait him so he doesn't come near our laps. Anyway, he kept wanting to go for my BF's share of toast and he must have said no/leave about 10 times and pushed him away and eventually that just set him off barking at him and wanting to go for him (in a puppyish way) but as all you lurcher / EBT Mum's and Dad's know; when they go and you can see their set of fangs it does still startle you. My bf put him on the lead and really told him off and sat him in his bed with the lead on / sat beside him.
Then this evening - I was cooking his dinner up for about 7 minutes and BF just came into the kitchen to help tidy up and he just switched. Barking, little growls and standing infront of me. BF was like what's wrong boy it's me it's fine but he just wouldn't stop. He tried to pick him up but he got more nasty. So this time, I put him on the lead and took him to his bed and really told him off myself and he just cowered and looked at me. I handed him to BF who sat with him on the sofa and again, he started to sulk and cower. We waited 15 minutes, and I got BF to finish off the dinner and dish-up. I left them both to it and came in here to sit at the PC. Now he's asleep on his lap.

What is going on.

A part of me thinks it's down to me e.g ME picking him up from the rescue centre ME always doing his dinner ME doing the long walks ME doing the training. Speak of the devil - BF has just come in here and said "we need to swap what we are doing. You do all the nice things. You give him majority of the good treats, dinners, breakfasts... I am always putting him into his bed at night when he doesn't want to, telling him no and getting more fuelled up than you; of course he is going to gravitate towards you." So I said yes fine that's a straight swap with me - no problem.
You slip into a routine as it fits in with your life i.e I feed him breakfast as I do early shifts at work... I feed him dinner as he's not home until 7PM each night... I have walked him most weekends as he was doing a lot of plumbing work overtime on the build-up to Xmas.

What is everyone's thoughts on this? Do you think it's just a simple case of mixing things up like my BF has said or do you think their are behavioural traits from some upturned memories from his previous owners that need to be squashed with 121 training or do you think once I commence the 6 week intense pup training mid-Jan, he'll start growing out of these things? Goodness, so many questions but I just love him so much - it would break my heart if he started turning on my partner because that is just one thing I would not tolerate.

 

[Kara 1]

Have you been in touch with battersea and asked for advice ...

 

[JudyN]

I think sometimes it doesn't help to know what caused a behaviour, at least in terms of whether it's related to past experiences, whether it's in his nature, or whether it's because you collected him from the rescue. This is the dog you have now, and the one you need to work with.

The first thing you need to do is to stop telling him off and punishing him for the behaviour. I've come to the conclusion that you can raise the best behaved dogs without ever 'telling them off' at all, but by focusing on making them want to do what you want them to do. It doesn't change the way he feels, and it will just exacerbate his stress about the whole 'love triangle thing'. If he is pushy with BF about food, then you either have to have him in a different room from you when you eat, or teach him a good 'on your bed' and ask for that when you're eating ('on your bed' needs to be trained in a positive way so it's not seen as a punishment, as being 'sent to the doghouse'). Then, when you've both finished eating, he can be rewarded for staying on his bed. You will probably have to start working on this with quick snacks, becase there's only so long he can cope with watching you eat. And you need to be 100% consistent about not giving him anything from your plate before you've finished.

In the second incident, he may have been stressed because he'd been smelling his food being cooked and was anxious about it - this could actually be a case of food guarding rather than related to you. (I'm vegetarian but if for any reason I cooked a chicken, my reactive dog would be quicker to react than normal.) Here, I think the key is management - in this scenario BF could, for instance, call Jackson out of the kitchen and reward him with a treat, then go into the kitchen to help you tidy. Anything, really, that avoids the flashpoints... Though of course at the moment you don't yet know all the flashpoints so this will be a learning experience.

These strategies aren't avoiding the situation, or pandering to him, but are helping him to realise that your BF isn't a threat, and that there is no cause for conflict at all. And as he settles in, the things that unsettle him now will no longer unsettle him. In the meantime, it's no bad thing if BF does the 'nice' things with Jackson as well as you, though I'm not convinced that being the one who feeds the dog makes that much difference to who they love most.

Another thought - you mentioned your BF shoved Jackson and tried to pick him up - my lurcher hates being shoved, and responds pretty much as I would if my OH shoved me (but with more teeth), so I will ask him to move instead, which he's fine with. It's a long time since I've been able to pick him up, but I'm pretty sure that would go down very badly too. So if Jackson prefers a more hands-off approach, that's fine. I find 'out of here' is a really useful command, and it's easily trained (by throwing a treat out of the door as you say it).

 

[JessandJackson]

Have you been in touch with battersea and asked for advice ...

Battersea have been useless and if I am honest - they wanted him out the kennels considering he had already been returned by another family. So - initially he went in there at 2 months old [I don't know why] and then a family of 5 took him out and returned him after 1 month - to which I got part and parcel of that story: nipping, jumping at kids, left at home all day with the Granddad who couldn't walk him as he was too strong, barking, over excitable... so I am sceptical with what they fed me to be fair. He slept a lot when I first got him I was concerned: I called them and they said oh he was always on the go - barking, crying that he is probably just catching up on some well earned rest... I thought that was bollox as I just registered him at the vets and they said it's normal because of his age but I wouldn't label him on-the-go... like, he never barks unless anxious or having a funny moment on our bed on his back

 

[JessandJackson]

@JudyN -

Thanks for your advice: well received and shared with my boyfriend too. He too agreed.

It’s hard as he says ‘I am more doing it incase he goes / charges for you,’ but I said to him, if he starts to have that air about him of protecting me, Jackson will also pick up on that and overlook the situation to be more of a threat and a big deal = nasty dog protecting me. I said to him – noticed in that scenario how I could grab him and move him away and he was still staring and wanting to get to you. I didn’t make one noise or tell either of them to stop it. I am a firm believer of silence is golden but it’s hard to get my boyfriend to understand that. He’s grown up with terriers and yorkies – he’s from a farming background in Ireland so the family were very vocal with the dogs and his Dad was romany so if the terrier bit anyone, he would get scolded and put in a shed overnight… quite old-fashioned approaches. I had a staffie for 14 years, so I know how to go about the bull breeds. They gravitate to calmness, confidence, monotone attitude and independence - I hope my boyfriend can learn this mentality. He thinks I am so laidback I may fall asleep but I said notice how he’s stopped mouthing me now whilst playing and he still mouths you… Our maisonette is not big either to which doesn't help as we cannot afford to have him hyped up and leaping/bounding throughout. We have a garden but it is shared so I can only put him on an extended lead when outside as people are in/out of the gate and leave it open. We are hoping to jump on the property ladder this year and find our dream house - one that accommodates Jackson too.

I agree with the treat thing (tricking them into going to certain places = a bonus) but my boyfriend is always saying ‘you don’t need to give him treats all the time when he isn’t being good... he won't learn.’ But yes, like you said in a way, they don’t see it as they aren’t being good. Their minds are like a maze @ this age – he is a bigger than average puppy but still with a puppy brain and so you have to be clever about these things. Agreed with the pushing as I said to b/f – notices how / when you do push him away from our plates, he starts showing the teeth. Notices when I don't agree with it how I stand up and back him into a corner by just walking into him.

LOL I hope I am not portraying the boyfriend out to be the problem here as he’s not... he is great. He does a lot for me and Jackson.

And exactly re: 2nd incident. He was already pestering us at dinner time and got a few swifts pushes from b/f and the teeth came out so at that point when I had finished our dinner and started his, he already had the hump with the boyfriend and so, when he entered the kitchen he probably thought well if I can’t have your food, you can’t have mine!

 

[Kara 1]

English bull terriers are alot different in character than staffys. ...shame about battersea they always portray being so good on paul ogardys programme

 

[JudyN]

Ah, but if BF calls Jackson and Jackson comes, then he is being good so he has earned the treat And it doesn't matter if Jackson believes he is being the crafty one - Jasper will hang around the kitchen door waiting for me to tell him to leave so he gets a treat but that's fine - he's happy, and I'm happy that I can cook without 'help'.

You could tell BF that some dogs, like the ones he grew up with, are like really robust bits of machinery that you can hit with a hammer when they go wrong, but lurchers (I can't speak for the bull genes) are more like precision instruments - delicate fragile, and need gentle handling. Handle them a little too roughly and some will crumble, others might explode!

 

[JessandJackson]

English bull terriers are alot different in character than staffys. ...shame about battersea they always portray being so good on paul ogardys programme

Doing good for animals sells. They advertised one dog who looked amazing and who I initially went there to adopt. They bought her out and she wasn't interested me in, in the slightest and was like a bull in a china shop - I said ok this is not the one for me. Then they even said they have a EBT puppy and I immediately thought micro-pig sized cutie but the woman bought in a horse-sized crossbreed and she was adamant it was just EBT.