Possessive/territorial Cocker

[JARV3003]

Hello everyone,

I'm a newbie to this site but thought you looked a friendly bunch!

We have a beautiful 6 year old orange roan (Jarvis), show stock, extremely bright, very vocal, great with kids, other dogs etc, but he has a bit of an issue with how possessive he is.

We recently lost our 12 year old Springer (Rolf) and despite Javis having grown up with him, we found that quite often when Rolf came into a room we were in, or near an area of a room Jarvis happened to be inhabiting, Jarvis would grumble at him. Occasionally he'd really sound like he was going for him - which he wasn't, it was all noise and no contact, but sounded awful. Rolf always totally ignored him, being the very sensible laidback chap he was, but it didn't stop Jarvis doing it. He does the same to my parents' Sprocker, who's very timid and consequently just avoids going near Jarvis.

At some point we'd like to get another dog, likely another Springer, possible another Cocker, but I'm very worried about bringing another dog in and having the same issues. We've just been approached to re-home a 2.5 year old Cocker male, who's apparently possessive over toys so I think is probably not suitable for us, but we were originally thinking of getting a puppy so that Jarvis is likely to not need to fight for dominance. Possibly a bitch as well?

Does anyone have any views on the type/age/sex of dog that might work best? We also have two cats (with whom Jarvis hasn't integrated but that's another story) so we need to ensur eany new dog is cat-friendly too...

Thank you!

[Hurtwood Dogs]

That's a very tricky one for anyone to advise on really - is there a particular item (does he have a chew or something when he does it)/area/person that he's guarding? Does he do it to you at all?

The answer 'might' be to give him his own space (a crate or something) that he can go to and call his own when there is another dog around... It would probably be worth trying to find a really good behaviourist to have a chat to before you do get another dog

[Poppsie]

I'am not an expert but, it sounds to me like like Jarvis was testing the waters with your old dog Rolf to see who was going to be top dog.
Now that Rolf has gone   maybe Jarvis is finding it a bit difficult adjusting to being on his own? When I lost Poppy my little Pebbles never got over losing her best mate. So maybe he needs a bit of time ?  Can't advise wether to get another dog or not that is a difficult one, but no doubt someone on here will be able to help with that.  Good luck in what ever you decide.

Dianne x x x

[sitdownshep]

We got Libby (4) ex breeding dog from wales who is blind & had the same problem with her & our 15 year old collie Shep, when ever he came in to the room when she was sat next to me she would growl & some times fly across the room to bite him, never got him as we stopped her, when she growled i would take her out of the room into her bed, leave her there for a few mins then let her back in saying to her now be nice to Shep, it took a few times of doing this & now she's fine, if she starts to growl at him i just say do you want to go in your bed, & she stops doing it, poor old Shep didn't know what he'd done wrong!! but now they are the best of mates, even sharing Shep's bigger bed, they just cuddle up together. hope this helps but i would say i have always found males get on better with bitches, our shep wouldn't have another male in the house!! It's his house!!!