Greyhound growling and lunging at me

[tke]

My greyhound, who we've had for a year now, has been showing aggressive behavior towards me but not to my husband. She formed a strong bond with him, and is incredibly loving and affectionate with him. She looks for affection from me much less often though, only a bit when she's excited about going on a walk or first thing in the morning. We've divided her care between us - we split feeding her and walking her equally. She's a very nervous dog, and has sleep startle and resource guarding tendencies. For this reason we keep her off the furniture and place her beds at a distance from where we're sitting or sleeping (though close enough to see us). She's made a lot of progress over the past year, getting more comfortable on walks and with the outside world in general.

She started growling at me when I pet her around 6 months in, but this got better after we both limited our affection for a while (advice from our rescue shelter). However, things have gotten worse again. She's started to growl and lunge in different situations, even nipping me recently. Some of these were my fault - like petting her when she had just got up after being in a deep sleep (I thought petting while standing was ok, but looks like it's not). But the most worrying instance is her lunging at me while I try to put on or take off her coat and harness. It's got to the point where my husband has to do it because she won't let me.

I don't know if this is mostly caused by fear, by wanting to assert her position in the pack, or both. We made excuses at first (she wasn't feeling well, she was stressed by fireworks) but it's continuing to happen when everything is fine otherwise. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

 

 

[HeyRunDog]

I guess this has knocked your confidence in handling her and you are nervous when you approach her to put the harness on etc. Unfortunately dogs pick up on this and I think she's trying to show you who is in charge. Act confidently even if you don't feel it, try putting the harness on together so she sees you as an equal to your husband. When she lunges put your hand out palm facing her as if you are stopping traffic and in a calm, confident and loud voice firmly say NO.