Thread: the new dog

Originally Posted by Andrew46826

I am going to ask a question and it's probably going to make me sound like a prat. Or even more of a prat

Can we elaborate more on this jealousy please? Last time I checked jealousy was a human emotion. Are we not confusing jealousy with guarding instinct? I can't fathom a dog getting 'jealous' because there is a new kid on the block and he/she is worried the pup is going to be better mates with the leader. As Ruff pointed out in a hypothetical situation if you are not there and the two dogs are together and the old dog killed the pup, surely that is simply again as Ruff said 'removing the threat'. Be it a strange threat. It didn't kill it out of some sense of self entitlement?

Sako 243 mentioned his dog can exhibit jealousy whenever other dogs visit. That doesn't sound like jealousy that sounds like guarding behaviour to me.

Or have I got that completely wrong?

Regardless of what name you give or anthropomorphic attribution it's an unwanted exhibit behavior. How you deal and handle it to get rid of it is what counts. There's nothing to be gained from us discussing if it's akin to human emotion or not, though dogs do possess the ability to feel happy or sad, threatened and be defensive or simply a bully that doesn't want anything else on it's turf eating its crumbs. Call it what you will. How you deal with it effectively is all that counts. The dog won't know what we call it.