Jealousy

[Ice Lady]

In the last few weeks my Baby Sweet Pea, now 20 mos old has become very jealous of my Sugar Princess, 12.75 years old. When I hold Sugar Princess or groom her Baby Sweet Pea attacks her quite viciously. Fortunately Sugar Princess has a very long, thick coat and Baby Sweet Pea is very tiny, only 2.42 lbs, so it ends up as only hair pulling. I reprimand Baby Sweet Pea and send her to her "place" to no avail. I have had to resort to restraining her so I can give Sugar Princess attention and groom her. The only change that has occurred recently is my daughter, 37, who prefers Sugar Princess, was with us for 2.5 weeks.

Any ideas on solving this problem?

Thanks

Joan and the Little Ladies

[dogma]

Sounds like you have a leadership problem. The kind of names you gave your dogs sound like you are one who would spoil them. You need to educate yourself about leadership through books or video. Your 2 lb problem is just beginning. Your Baby is set to take over your house and your other dog. Showing favoritism is as insulting to dogs as it is to us, and your visitor insulted Baby. I have 2 Smooth Chihuahua's and they are treated the same. They have a lot of rules that we enforce because that is what is good for dogs, and they ARE dogs. They would rather be praised for following rules than punished for poor behavior. Please learn about leadership. You all will be happy when you are pack leader.

[Cassiepeia]

If it were me in this situation, I'd firstly make sure I spent plenty of (equal) one on one time with each dog and I would spend it obedience training (I'll leave some clicker training links at the bottom of this post) and exercising them (including playing if they were the type of dogs to play).
Secondly I would, every single time Sweet Pea started to act aggressively, get up and walk out of the room (with sugar). Completely ignore her and remove myself...because the human's attention is the prize in this...that's all Sweet Pea wants. Give her attention, even negative attention, and she gets what she is demanding.
If you ignore her and leave, she is left alone, which is not at all what she craves.
Do this every single time she starts to show any sign of aggression. It will take a while for her to get the idea but she will and make sure when she is sitting nice and quietly near you, you give her a pat and maybe a treat as well to let her know she is being a good calm girl. Rewarding the good is easier for the dog to understand what you want.

I would also try NiLiF (nothing in life is free), which basically means you get the dog (both dogs in this case...do not leave Sugar out) to work for everything (treats, toys, attention, priviledges like sitting on the couch). That doesn't mean anything harsh, it just means you make them (for example) 'sit' before you allow them to do something.

So what that teaches them is that YOU are the boss and YOU control the resources (food, toys, comfy places to sit and any affection from you), NOT them. Once they know the rules life is less confusing for them and they understand what is expected, life will be a whole lot more pleasant.

By the way, this doesn't mean that you can't "spoil" your dogs...it just means that you do it intelligently. We all think of our dogs like kids, but we respect the fact that they are dogs too.

Some links for you...
www.clickertraining.com
www.clickersolutions.com
www.clickerlessons.com

http://www.k9deb.com/nilif.htm - Nothing in life is free

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

Cass.