First Time Showing Aggression After 5 Months?

[BellasPapa]

Hi everyone,

 

I have been reading this forum a lot over the past 6 months and have already learned a lot from this community. I was hoping I could get some help with an issue I'm having.

 

I have a 2 1/2 year old female greyhound that LOVES people and other dogs. She has never shown aggression towards another human and very rarely with other dogs (always a clear reason why like trying to hump her or standing over her while she was dozing on the floor). However, something happened yesterday that I am hoping for some help with.

 

My brother adopted a greyhound as well about a week ago and he is a shy 3 year old boy. Yesterday I took my dog to meet his at my brother's condo. We had them meet outside and everything went great! A lot of sniffing and we went on a short walk before heading inside. Once inside things were fine at first. My dog followed my brother into the kitchen and was standing next to him as he made coffee, and when my brother's dog came into the kitchen mine started to growl. We told her no and she stopped. I called her into the other room and she came. My brother's dog followed her over towards me and when she was standing near me she started baring her teeth looking straight ahead. Again we said no and separated them. I brought her to the couch and sat down next to her. My brother's dog approached me on my right and while I gave him neck scritches my girl started growling again. We told her no again and she stopped. We let them lay down and relax across the room from each other for a while. Then we put their leashes on and tried an introduction inside again. My girl was fine for the most part as the other grey came up and started sniffing. When the other dog started sniffing more towards the front of her very quickly she bared her teeth and snapped at my brothers dog. I took her to the corner and scolded her (she didn't really react or seem to care). From there we just let them lay separately across the room until it was time to go. We all went outside as we left and outside my girl was completely fine and friendly. A complete 180 from inside the condo!

 

I'm hoping that I can get some advice on how to get these dogs to get along because I see my brother a lot and I am supposed to watch his dog when he goes on vacation in a month.

 

Some other pertinent information that may help:

My girl has been to the condo before and stayed overnight there two times (before my brother had the dog).

She has gone to my fiancee's parent's house for the weekend and gotten along great with their dog (non-greyhound)

My fiancee's parents and their dog have stayed a weekend at my house and again, no issues with the other dog

My dog was recently started on Proin for spay incontinence and pyrantel for hookworm. She was panting and getting a racing heart on Proin so we are playing with lowering the dose and she is finally acting normal on a low dose.

She was panting and I think feeling kind of crappy yesterday.

 

 

Thanks for any help you can provide because if there is any dog I need mine to get along with, it is my brother's dog!

 

 

[greysmom]

First of all, true aggression in dogs is very rare, and what you described was not that. Growling and snapping are just ways dogs communicate, which greyhounds do very well together, so you don't want to correct or discourage it when it happens. If you do, she may jump right over the growl/snap warning and go for a more direct correction which is usually more serious.

 

You and your brother need to spend some time with the dogs away from both homes. Since she was the first dog, and spent time in both places, she likely sees them both as "hers" and sees him as an interloper. She is essentially "resource guarding" areas of the house and the humans she views as hers. So having them bond over a nice long walk someplace strange to both of them will help.

 

If she does growl as you described, she needs to be removed from the situation quickly and calmly. I would probably leave a short leash attached to her for a little while when the dogs are together. Then, when she resource guards you or your brother or a room you can calmly take the leash and lead her to another part of the house for a short time out. When you get to her time out space, praise her and give her a little treat and leave her alone for a few minutes (until she calms down if she throws a fit).

 

Number two - the male may still have enough testosterone in his system to make her a little defensive. Time and patience will help take care of that.

 

Number three - hooks and the treatment to get rid of them can be painful and upsetting to a dogs system. She may just feel crappy and not up to being sociable and nice to the new guy right now. Again, time and patience.

 

Number four - be *very* careful with proin. If you search through the Health and Medical section you will see many serious issues with greyhounds and that drug. You might want to talk with your vet about switching her to D.E.S which is a hormonal drug that should do the same thing with fewer side effects.

[MaryJane]

Switch your dog to DES instead of Proin. Proin has been implicated in sudden death in greyhounds due to blood pressure spikes. It is very hard to check for so, not worth the chance.

[BellasPapa]

I think we will call the vet because the dose of proin I gave today was low enough to have her act normal, but she is leaking when asleep again.

 

Just curious about DES... What is the cost? I'm going to switch her anyways but I want to know what I'm getting into

Also thanks so much for the reply

[greysmom]

It's not expensive, and my girl only takes one a month (after a loading dose).

[racindog]

"I took her to the corner and scolded her...."

This is absolutely one of the worse things you can do. She has NO IDEA why you were doing that to her and it will erode any chance of ever having good engagement with her. That is why she didn't 'react' as you put it. She was submitting to correction and she didn't even know what it was for.

You cannot force dogs to 'get along' and accept each other. You can easily create additional problems and make existing issues worse however if you don't know what you are doing. Tread carefully.

[BellasPapa]

@racindog yeah I realized that after I tried to research and see what the best course of action would be. I hope I didn't mess things up too much by doing that ):

[robinw]

About 15 years ago I had adopted a brood mama named Loca. Once I took her to a meet and greet at a pet supply store. A puppy came running up to her and she promptly pinned it down and the puppy was screaming like crazy. I remember I wanted to die and send her packing. Friends then explained that she showed normal behaviour towards an unruly puppy. My point is that lots of times we missed doggie cues because we don't know what to look for. It doesn't mean that the dog did anything wrong; we just didn't know how to read the signals.

[BellasPapa]

For anyone interested: we stopped Bella's proin and she is feeling much better. Yesterday my fiancee and brothers girlfriend took the dogs on a walk and decided to try taking them inside again. No issues whatsoever! Just some sniffing then they both went to sleep.

 

I really think the proin was making Bella feel like crap as she was panting heavily all day and she just wasn't in the mood to be social that day.

[macoduck]

That's great news! Thanks for the update.

[robinw]

For anyone interested: we stopped Bella's proin and she is feeling much better. Yesterday my fiancee and brothers girlfriend took the dogs on a walk and decided to try taking them inside again. No issues whatsoever! Just some sniffing then they both went to sleep.

 

I really think the proin was making Bella feel like crap as she was panting heavily all day and she just wasn't in the mood to be social that day.

Great news!