lately scout and max have been practicing for their auditions for the WWE. while they are having one of their practice sessions salty sits by, usually on the recliner, and watches them, all the while growling. sometimes they are just low grumbles and other times the growls are a bit more intense. once i had to yell at scout to settle her down because she was flying over our coffee table and on to the couch and then caterpaulting herself off the couch. she settled down for about 5 seconds then when it looked like she just couldn't contain herself anymore and was going for round 2 salty leaped off the chair and gave scout a realy stern snarl and blocked her path to the couch. then salty went back on to the chair and continued to growl the whole time scout and max were playing.

salty also has taken to making sure max is clean, a hundred times a day. max just stands there while salty cleans him from head to butt, but if max happens to look at salty while she is cleaning him she will growl at him. she will continue to clean him, but she growls as she is licking him. when she growls he turns his head away from her but she continues to grumble/growl until she is done cleaning him.

what is causing these behaviors ?

whats your initial impression?

My thing about the wrestling is. Salty may not like the wrestling it makes her tense. The other thing, I think salty may be showing signs of a dog that is very rank orientated but still on the bottom of the totem pole. She tries to grab a piece of the pie where ever she can. I would bet also, Salty is trying to build an alliance with max...sort of like building her own empire. I have seen this type of behavior with rank orientated dogs with no real power of thier own. So they try to build a pack of thier own. which is interesing. You have claimed salty is/was dog aggressive. Which makes sense. The first thing rank dogs, with no power try to do, is show other dogs they have power.

Alphla wannabes. the funny thing is these dogs will show humans the most amount of submission and have the cutest personalities.

these rank orientanted dogs, may have aquired these traits through years of selective breed...rank instincts kind of gone hay wire. or they are in evolving and we are just seeing the metamorphisis in the middle and not the desired transformation.

Just an Idea...I could be wrong.

Sounds like my sister.

HA HA HA...
But seriously, like, confused and REALLY passive aggressive!!!! I'm no dog psychologist, but I would say the "I am not having any fun here, so you can't either" kind of attitude.

I have no idea how you fix that. Maybe in time?

thanks for responding. gunny my initial impression ? salty is nuts, lol. on a serious note though what you said makes some sense to me. i am very confused about her behavior sometimes and really dont know what to think. i was just figuring, like kdubbs said, that she wasn't fond of all the commotion and fun scout and max are having.

but what you said does make sense because i have seen things in her that make me question whether she really is all she pretends to be.

so now what do i do about it and do i have anything to worry about for the future ?

I agree, I think she is all talk like my Sadie. Sadie is very vocal about things, the only difference is... Sadie IS the boss and she never misses an opportunity to let everyone know it lol

Salty sounds very confused/excited/playful/annoyed/frustrated and I think if the new guy will let her be in charge of him, she will milk it for what it's worth. As long as they are fine with their positions, and they work their little doggie dramas out, I say let the weirdness reign supreme lol

Could it also be because she views Max as her baby and just like with older humans, sometimes the "kids" raising hell is enough to drive you up a wall?

rofl pope, yep that could be it. i have noticed over the years that salty does get all growly whenever someone starts acting up or gets hyper. it took her a long time to get used to thunder because of that. thunder is a very hyper dog and he runs around the house alot or is very spastic with his movements and she would growl at him all the time but never attack him or anything. so it may be that she is just annoyed with all the commotion.

so gunny ......... what do i do about this ?

I do not have a quick fix answer. First we have to be sure that my "hypothesis" is even correct. If I am right I think that you may have a hard time changing this. The dog is feeling anxiety by all this. So how do we get the dog to relax....you got me. Discpline may work. Verbal. But it also may create more anxiety. It would be nice to watch for longer and get more information. But I am sure we are worried about these dogs going at it.

One thing...you just got this dog in the last year...the little one? If that is true. Give salty some more time. It took our shayna a year to warm to moose.

I have seen alphla wannabes try to act tough...get beat up, scream like they are dying...and then go right back to thier games.