Dutch Shepherd Forum

Hey guys. I'll start of by saying I've already worked Endeavor through fixing this issue, but I wanted to share and get your opinions on a couple details of what happened. Here goes.

Few weeks back, we had someone come to check out the house while I was at work and the ex and my 7 year old were home. That morning, I moved En's crate to the basement and put her up down there so she wouldn't be stressed. Well, I got lazy and didn't bring her crate up for about three days. I noticed she had piled all the pillows in the corner of the couch nearest where her crate normally stays. I'm wondering if it was some sort of denning. She was obviously confused about not having her space to go to.
So, after a few days, I brought it back up. Now... She had a few toys in there that had just been kicking around for months with absolutely no significance tied to them. But, after the few days without her crate, she became fixated with one squeaky snake toy in particular. Normally, she would tear the thing up, hit it hard and tug like hell. But since she got it back she's very protective/defensive of it and handles it with extreme care... The same way a mother would with a pup.
Furthermore, En started lunging out of an open create at familiar guests whenever she had snuck the toy in there. I threw it in the basement, and she'd sneak down and find it and sneak it all the way back to her crate. So I've gotten her past all that, but it's not something I anticipated. Her behavior is intriguing. She was showing signs of confusion without her crate available to her. She was much more engaging with me for that period of time.
So I put her to work with a couple guests and she stopped the lunging, but she was still focused on that toy. She would stop anything and run to her crate if someone came by, BUT ONLY IF THE TOY WAS IN THE CRATE!?.
Is this textbook resource guarding? How would that explain the tenderness with which she handles the toy?

So I took the toy. Her behavior is 100% normal without it. I also had her run some nosework drills that incorporated a couple guests and she had zero reactivity.

Any thoughts on what switch flipped in her head?

For the missing crate, I would say she is denning, I know mine like the spot the crates are in and if I make any changes, they get all messed up for a bit. When I switched sadie to a bigger crate so Cookie can have the smaller one, She would not go in the bigger one for a while since she had the other one all of her life. Same with dog beds, mine kind of like a particular one and they will switch but they give me a look. I have about 6 dog beds.

As far as now that toy is so important, Steve may be able to give a better idea about that. I would say it was resource guarding. When I was working with my protection dog trainer, he would tell us that the dogs are not allowed to "own" anything. But Like I said, Steve may have a better explanation.

I have never had a missing crate or anything that changed for them flip a switch like what En is going through, Maybe something age related as well ?

I would say it probably had something to do with you putting the crate down there which she wasn’t comfortable with and then you throwing the snake down there, maybe she thought more of her stuff was going to end up down there and so she began protecting it. She had something that comforted her with the change of her crate moving to the basement and then you took that from her and threw it downstairs with her crate too.

They seem to be very sensitive to change. When Zoey was younger we had got her to get used to going in her crate that night and then we rearranged the living room and moved her crate and that just fucked it all up completely. She did not like the new spot and then even after moving it back she was like nope.

I think En was just stressed.

Also check if her teats are swelled some. Because we’re guessing, check for false pregnancy.

Tim91118 wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2019 3:39 pm Also check if her teats are swelled some. Because we’re guessing, check for false pregnancy.

thats what i was thinkiing

Hmmm she's been licking them more often than usual I think. I'll check a little later on.

Nerps looked A-ok.