Dog Community

Change in dogs behavior (any input would help)

Posted : 2/24/2010 9:39:39 AM

I work at a doggie daycare and boarding facility. We are still small and we have a good relationship with all our customers. We have a dog that has been coming to us for almost a year now. He is a lab mix, about 2 years old. He lives in a house with another female chocolate lab who also comes to daycare. Both are spayed and neutered. The problem is both me and my boss have noticed a bog change in the male dog. He never used to mount any of the other dogs, he never marked on anything, and he didn't used to bark in other dogs faces. I'm getting ready to pull my dog books out and start refreshing my memory on everything, but I wanted to let the owner know that he is acting extremely different. This morning as soon as he came into the front office he lifted his leg to pee on the desk and he has never once lifted his leg inside the facility before. Then when he got outside he was mounting all the females. Its like a human boy going into puberty.

Could a female dog in heat in his neighborhood cause then sudden change? I will see the owner this afternoon and would like to give her some input on what is going on and what could be some possible causes.

Thanks in advance.

-Erin

espencer

Posted : 2/24/2010 10:28:54 AM

It can be too many things, from the owners being more permisible than before, all the way to probably new dogs actually at your facility affecting the dog in a negative way.

I will tackle just one of the too many reasons:

It could be territorial and wants to mark your facility as his, why? like i said, maybe a new dog in your facility is affecting him, maybe there is a new dog in his neighborhood who triggered this behavior. Check the way he is entering to your facility, whats his body language? Tail, ears, posture? The behavior he displays when crossing the door is the behavior he will keep the whole time inside there. If the dog crosses the door in a relaxed way then thats how he will be, the job would be making sure the behavior is changed starting from the parking lot. This type of behavior could trigger fights as other dogs might not agree whith the "rudeness" or this dog might not agree that other dogs dont like what he is doing.

animalcraze

Posted : 2/24/2010 10:40:45 AM

When he enters the door, hes relaxed and excited. You can tell hes happy to be there, hes not showing any dominant signs when he enters. Tail is wagging, not up high.

Thanks for your input. Like I said I want to see what other people think so I can talk to the owner with as much info as possible so we can hopefully get this worked out before it causes a big problem.

Thankfully he isn't mounting the male dogs, only female. And we have rooms for "time-out" when he won't stop. It's only a recent change, like within this week. Today was the worst I have seen.

Liesje

Posted : 2/24/2010 10:42:32 AM

animalcraze
Its like a human boy going into puberty.

Large breed, about 2 years old, I think there you have it!

spiritdogs

Posted : 2/24/2010 11:52:34 AM

Liesje
animalcraze
Its like a human boy going into puberty.

Large breed, about 2 years old, I think there you have it!

Bingo - age of social maturity for this type of dog.

espencer

Posted : 2/24/2010 1:05:12 PM

Social maturity means that he is allowed to mark inside, hump other dogs and bark at their faces?

animalcraze
It's only a recent change, like within this week. Today was the worst I have seen.

It seems that for some posters the social maturity just dropped suddenly like a rock

Liesje

Posted : 2/24/2010 1:21:45 PM

espencer
Social maturity means that he is allowed to mark inside, hump other dogs and bark at their faces?

The OP asked for "possible causes" for these changes. Please show me where anyone said anything about "allowing" these inappropriate behaviors? Maybe it means that to you, to me it just means that this dog may no longer be a candidate for a dog daycare environment.

spiritdogs

Posted : 2/25/2010 3:08:54 PM

Liesje

espencer
Social maturity means that he is allowed to mark inside, hump other dogs and bark at their faces?

The OP asked for "possible causes" for these changes. Please show me where anyone said anything about "allowing" these inappropriate behaviors? Maybe it means that to you, to me it just means that this dog may no longer be a candidate for a dog daycare environment.

Thank you, Liesje. I certainly did not say that these behaviors are unmodifiable, just that they may have their roots in social maturity, which is when we frequently see such behaviors emerging.