[mulliganvi]

We have a super friendly, family friendly 3 year old puppy. Our issue is that if our kids go to sleep she resource guards them. The puppy will join the sleeping kid and then becomes aggressive if someone else comes into the room or even hear steps. Aggressive with growling, barking and standing between the child and me (or whoever comes in). If I go to remove her by the collar she will nip at me. What we do is call her out of the room and offer her a treat if she comes and stops barking. I think we have encouraged this behavior. Our fix to this was to not put her in this situation, the kids rooms would stay close at night, the dog was not allowed in there. However, now if a kid goes to the restroom in the night and leaves their door open, the puppy enviably goes into bed with them and starts guarding them. What should we do? The puppy does not hurt the kids she is guarding, but does scare them because the barking and growling is loud and they are sleeping. I think we can get her to recreate this behavior with a mock sleeping exercise, if that's the way to go? Thank you very much!

 

[3GSD4IPO]

Crate the dog at night.
Very simple.

Dog does not sleep with the kids.

 

[mulliganvi]

The dog is isolated. A gate to keep the dog from going upstairs and the doors to the rooms are closed. Most of the time, there is no issue. However, there are times when the gate doesn't get closed due to the kids up in the night. Or during the day if a kid takes the nap.

We have time to work on it now. So if there is a video or link that someone know that helps with this scenario, that would be appreciated.

We do not want the dog sleeping with the kids. We just want to protect against the one off scenarios. Particularly if a grandparent is watching the kids or someone not as familiar with our intricacies.

 

[3GSD4IPO]

Crate train the dog. At night put the dog in the crate. That is the answer.

As with any resource guarding the best answer is to remove the conflict. Same goes for resource guarding food. Put the dog in a crate or in a room with the food by itself and leave the dog alone. When the dog is done get the dog out of the room or crate.

In this case it is kids.
Prevention is 9/10ths of the cure.