Barking and growling aggressively - new behaviour

[Matt]

Hello all.

Just to set the scene, I have a 9-10 month old Frenchie boy who we essentially ‘rescued’ from breeders as he was going to be kept for breeding but his life consisted of being shut down an alleyway with his 2 sisters.

At the time we were living in temp accommodation, he lived in our bedroom with 3 boxer dogs, and soon starting trying to establish his place in the pack. One of the dogs was quite ‘barky’ and this behaviour did rub off, they both became a bit worse with it really. Finally we were able to move out into our first home. As Percy was a bit older when we got him, the world was very scary for him and he had a few issues, like being scared of concrete, laminate, the car, you name it.

Eventually he became quite normalised to all of this and now seems quite settled in our home. Just over a week ago Percy was castrated. Since being in this home, he has barked a lot when people walk by outside or to the door which I get is normal, but for the past day or so when we’ve had guests over, he’s looked hell bent on attacking them when he walks through the door, snapping and snarling and I don’t know why. To stop it I’ve tried punishing him by shutting him out or putting him in the cage which has obviously allowed him to calm down, but even when a guest went upstairs and came back in he would growl and bark again. Today I have had him on a lead and told him to sit when people have came in which to some extent works to calm him after he realises he can’t get to them, but he can still act quite ‘bullyish’ and essentially sit next to guests trying to be slightly intimidating.

Does anyone have any tips or advice? What should I be doing at which stage? Is this a temporary behaviour that would pass anyway? I will of course be trying to actively train him throughout, I’m hoping it’s just as the hormone levels still haven’t gone down and he doesn’t know how to behave but I hope he can learn how to be as he wasn’t this bad before, I just had to say shhh and not be afraid. Is me holding him back causing things to worsen, whereas before I’d just let
him run all the way to the door.

Thanks if anyone can help! Appreciate it very much. He can be difficult but I’m not giving up on him easily. I’m thinking he’s stressed and feels like he has to protect us but I’m trying to show him I’m boss and he doesn’t!

 

[Frenchie Grrrl]

I wonder if something like Rescue Remedy would work to help calm him. You could give it to him before guest arrive, and maybe intermittently during their visit.

I have seen research saying that dogs that have been neutered have been found to have more issues with aggression and fear/anxiety than their intact counterparts. I think there are some natural remedies that you can give a recently neutered pet to lessen the blow of removing all those hormones.

 

[Matt]

I’ll give that a go - thanks!

I have also seen this but the issue was he genuinely was interested in nothing but attempting to mate, and thus we saw it as the best thing for him, plus for health reasons we wanted to try and make things better for him later in life. Do you think behavioural training along with the hormone changes should likely take effect?

 

[Frenchie Grrrl]

I’ll give that a go - thanks!

I have also seen this but the issue was he genuinely was interested in nothing but attempting to mate, and thus we saw it as the best thing for him, plus for health reasons we wanted to try and make things better for him later in life. Do you think behavioural training along with the hormone changes should likely take effect?

Yeah, we can only do what we think is best for our babies at the time. I was certainly not judging your decision :no:, just saying that it's not completely unusual. I would get behavior training and do whatever you can because issues like this are scary to me.

 

[Matt]

Yeah, we can only do what we think is best for our babies at the time. I was certainly not judging your decision :no:, just saying that it's not completely unusual. I would get behavior training and do whatever you can because issues like this are scary to me.

Appreciate that, completely agree! I think while it’s certainly not desirable, it may just be a case of asserting my dominance and as he matures he will progressively understand I’m the one that’s meant to keep him safe rather than the other way around. He’s so loving but at the same time he can try to give guests a sly, super slo mo nip if they try to stroke him above his head so I have to look out for this too.