How much growling is normal?

Growling is so varied from dog to dog and with pups who are learning how to communicate with their "pack" members.  I don't worry much about most growling from puppies.  Dogs can make growly sounds that don't translate into a warning type of growl.  Like barking, many dogs use different growls to express all sorts of emotions.  It's not something I would worry about.  Gabby, as a young puppy,  was and still is the most "talkative" dog I own.  She has a range of growls, barks, yelps, yodels and yips that she uses to express her emotions. 

It depends on the dog.  Nikon is SUPER vocal.  He barks, whines, growls, moans, etc nonstop.  Growling for him is not necessarily a sign of insecurity or aggression.  He growls a lot when playing with people and other dogs.  He's never had a fight with another dog or inappropriately bit a person.  Kenya never growls.  Coke will only growl if he's REALLY serious and for him it IS a "back off!" threat (for example he growled at Pan b/c Pan was jumping on his back and he has this nasty, painful hotspot and is on prednisone which makes him a bit weird).

are you sure she is not snorting? My hounds are loud with nasally rumbly noises...like pigs almost LOL.

Assuming it is a "growl"...I do not like to hear small puppies...growl...esp when handled by humans. I might do some small fun restraint and handling exercises daily. I have had an occasional hound pup as small as 5 weeks growl when picked up, and I handle them MORE because of it. They usually cease that within a week or so as they become more comfortable. That growling either stems from fear...or dominance and resentment of being made to stay in one place or accept handling. Both are really not something I want to deal with later or have new families deal with so I try my best to nip it in the bud. But both usually hang around in some form...either a pup that is not that confident so it goes to a quiet home...or a pup that is a handful so it goes to an experienced home, etc.

Does she make eye contact when she is doing this? try to leave, or try to make you continue the petting when you stop when she makes the noise? It'd be great to get it on video with sound so we can better judge what's going on.

Thanks everyone. Generally Lilith is fairly vocal, I call her my little cry baby lol. She cries when she doesn't get what she wants and she makes that amazing Toller scream I heard so much about when shes excited lol. We never give in to the whining so hopefully with time that will go away. But with the growling I do not think its snorting, maybe sometimes, but not with this particular growl.  I don't have a video camera, but I found a youtube video of a dog growling and barking. And the deep growl the dog makes before barking is what it sounds like with Lilith. Its surprisingly deep for a puppy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLsdNsMw5_4

She doesn't make eye contact that I've noticed. These are all the situations that she did that deep growl:

- I was petting her and she laid down for a tummy rub, then after a few seconds squirmed and did that growl and snapped her head towards my hand, then ran off and did crazy zoomies. And another time I was petting her sides while she was laying down and she did that growl again, but this time seemed relaxed and wagging her tail (I know not all tail wagging means happy, but she did seem happy).

-Generally for feeding, Sky eats in my room and Lilith either gets her food in her tricky treat ball, a bowl or we practice obedience with her food. Well the one day I set the bowl down with Skyline out and Skyline tried to eat Liliths food and Lilith did that growl. I've been more careful with that since then. But Lilith and Skyline share water and toys as well as treats with no issues. Lilith also takes treats from my kids with no issues at all. Anyone can pet her or touch her food when shes eating and shes doesn't care. Its just with Sky that one time with her bowl. Lilith doesn't even seem to care if Skylines around her tricky treat ball.

-Three times Lilith has done this growl when sleeping. Once when a loud noise startled her awake and twice when my kids went to pet her while sleeping. Generally I keep the kids away from both dogs while sleeping, but both times the kids got near Lilith my husband was watching her *sigh*

-And the last time it happened, Lilith had zoomies and I called her and Skyline over and pet Lilith then when Skyline got close she did that growl at Skyline and snapped at her. So I stopped petting Lilith and ignored her. She just ran off playing and didn't seem to care after that.

Lilith is a very confident dog and very stubborn at times. So I don't think shes lacking in confidence. Everywhere that I've ever taken her, shes handled it with ease, well, except diesel trucks, she doesn't like those still although I've been working on it with her. But every new person is her friend, most weird sounds she handles very well. But she is very pushy lately. And she does still play rough with Skyline and ignores Skylines 'leave me alone' cues. Thats been a problem since she first got here. Not sure if its because shes bigger than Sky that she doesn't listen to Sky. But I am always right there to separate them when Lilith gets too rough. I hope she grows out of that too. Anyway, I hope this explains the growl thing a bit better.

 

rwbeagles

are you sure she is not snorting? My hounds are loud with nasally rumbly noises...like pigs almost LOL.

Do your hounds "oink" Gina?? Sadie makes this "oinking" noise all the time when she's happy - it's ridiculous. The last time Sadie was at the vet's, the tech and her were both sitting on the ground and the tech was brushing her and Sadie started oinking and the tech backed off and started apologizing for hurting her - I had to explain that no, she was not hurt, she was enjoying the brushing and that she would be giving out kisses if the brushing were to continue. The tech looked at me like I was crazy, but decided to resume brushing and sure enough - she got some tiny beagle kisses!

Anyways...back to the original thread topic. I think it depends on the dog. Timmy is super vocal, sounds like he is similar to Nikon. He talks all the time. It sounds like growling in various pitches, when we are petting him, giving belly rubs, when he wants to play...whatever, he vocalizes it. He doesn't actually bark that often, but he gurgles all the time. This is not him actually growling, this is him talking. We've heard his actual growl once, it is incredibly low pitched, you can barely hear it, but holy moly does it sound serious. He's never snapped or bitten a person or anything or shown any aggression. He's just a talker. I've heard that lots of Rotties are big on talking too.

.stacer.

Do your hounds "oink" Gina?? Sadie makes this "oinking" noise all the time when she's happy - it's ridiculous. The last time Sadie was at the vet's, the tech and her were both sitting on the ground and the tech was brushing her and Sadie started oinking and the tech backed off and started apologizing for hurting her - I had to explain that no, she was not hurt, she was enjoying the brushing and that she would be giving out kisses if the brushing were to continue. The tech looked at me like I was crazy, but decided to resume brushing and sure enough - she got some tiny beagle kisses!

Yes they do. *smiles fondly remembering* Susie was a very big oinker. In fact one of her nicknames was "SusiePig". Just the girls tho...Sully is more a farter than an oinker.

 

Kindred....I think the puppy is very bossy and will require a real firm hand as she matures. That all sounds like somewhat pushy behavior. If you want to do things with your dog tho pushy is often good. They can take some adversity or loud things or failure and bounce back...but man they can be tough on ya! LOL. Sully is very very confident and he mouths a little. I haven't ever heard him growl tho. But...he's a Beagle LOL.

Ya that about sums her up. Shes pretty bossy lol. Since day one though I have done NILIF. So maybe over time things will get better. Shes also not very mouthy anymore. It took a while, but she almost never mouths and when shes does now its very gentle. I'm also so happy about starting classes tomorrow. I'm nervous, because I've never been to dog classes before, so I don't know what to expect, but I think it will be great for both of us. She will be in obedience classes for a long time. After shes finishes puppy classes, shes going right into basic obedience, then advanced, then I want to try a class they have called Roving Rovers where all the classes are done in a different outdoor place around the city. Then once she hits a year old I really really want to try agility (for fun, not competitive) and Rally-O. I know very little about either of them, but I think it would be something fun for both of us to try. Hopefully that will keep her busy as well as our regular training and playing that we do at home and around town lol.

Sounds like she's REALLY vocal, and also starting some resource guarding.

 

Bean "talks" A LOT. She carries toys around, and growls at people, with her head sideways and her spine in a half moon shape. She's just greeting, happily. When she's REALLY happy, she wooowooos and yips, with the toy in her mouth. She "growls" with bones in her mouth, parading them around the room. She will give the bone to anyone, human or dog, that asks for it, so it's not guarding, for sure. Just talking about how happy she is about her bone. She gets VERY loud, in play, and she's a talker about food. She's just a talkie dog:) There's a difference in that, and a growl/airsnap over space.

I agree with the resource guarding. It sounds like she is going to be a resource guarder with other dogs. The other instances sound like she is reacting to either being startled or it is her beginning way to tell you/the kids to back off. The growl then snapping her head around is just shy of actually air snapping with her mouth. Since she is just a puppy you really don't know which direction her personality will take with stuff like this so its best to go in with your eyes open. It sounds like you are doing all the right things, nilif and starting her in training so this stuff will probably just fall away over the next several months. Just continue with building your bond and trust through training

Well I'm glad to hear I'm doing things right so far. But I'm not entirely sure it is resource guarding, because wouldn't she be doing that with everything, especially high quality treats? Lilith shares everything else just fine with Skyline, just not her bowl that one time, and I haven't tried since then, so I don't know if it was a one time thing or going to be an on-going thing. I don't really think I want to test that out though just incase she is guarding her bowl. I'm just hoping that this isn't anything serious, but I'll continue doing what I'm doing and hope for the best. Thanks everyone for the help :)

 

You can't assign value to things, the dog does that. What looks extra good to you, may be so so to her. What looks disgusting to you (say..... CAT POO!) is probably awesome to you. Some dogs value their humans far more than a food bowl, or even a super tasty bone.

We are just guessing at this point since we haven't seen it ourselves. Resource guarding can be really minor like "just get your face out of my bowl" which really isn't a problem. Dogs can eat near each other and are fine so long as they don't try to actually steal. Its really up to you to train them that it is not ok to steal. You can do this by giving them all a certain spot to eat (maybe designated by a mat or a blanket). Line them up a few feet apart from each other and teach them to "wait" until you release them to eat out of their bowl. With training you can have the bowls sitting in front of them then give the ok. If they try to leave their mat once done, you don't allow it. Or you can allow them to leave the room as they finish but they are not allowed to enter the other dogs space while the dog bowl is down. As soon as the dogs are done, the dog bowls go away. Dogs learn pretty quick when it comes to their dinner.

once your puppy learns that you will be the one that keeps the other dogs away, the growling stuff should reduce to nothing.

I've lived with 3 resource guarders at different levels of the spectrum and find it pretty manageable. The bottom line is I control the resources and if one starts getting too grumpy over something, I just put it away for a while.

Hmm I see what you guys are saying. But I guess I don't think it was that bad because it was only the one time with growling about something regarding food and once with Sky coming up to me. Skyline and Lilith do eat in separate rooms. Each one has to sit and wait for me to say 'go get it' before they can have their food. It just slipped my head the one day with letting Skyline out before Lilith was done, I just never thought it would be an issue at all. And even when she growled at Sky when she came up to me, it hasn't happened since. I'm not saying its not a possibility that she might have a little resource guarding, it just seems unlikely to me is all. But I do respect your guys opinions and I will take precautions just incase. I'd rather be safe than sorry :)