Male dominance

[Shadowpup]

Ok first of all Flynn is 5 months and Yuri is 8 months. Yuri is the established dog in the house. Yuri is getting neutered tomorrow and Flynn is a bit young yet but will when he's old enough. But they keep humping eachother (obviously male dominance) and fighting a bit. Of course I know all this is normal and they are sorting out their pecking order.

But.. Flynn gaurds food. He won't let Yuri eat since we got him yesterday so I have kept Yuri's food away from him and fed them seperatly. He's slowly allowing Yuri to use the water bowls but I had to monitor that too. Yuri is being neutered tomorrow and the vet has told me to keep them seperate while Yuri's healing which is fine, I can do that easily.

Basically what my question is Flynn is growling when anyone goes near his food is this a dominance issue or a gaurding issue? I'm not quite sure how to work with it as we never had any issues with Yuri. I always took Yuri's bone and gave it back and I'm doing the same with Flynn to get him used to it and he has tried to nip me once.

Obviously I'm going though all the motions, never leaving him unattended with my other dog or my daughter. I'm just wondering if some of the behavior will calm down after he's settled and perhaps after he gets neutered (he's only 5 months so can't be right now).

I think I know the answer to my own question I just need someone to confirm what I'm saying and surgest some other excersises to work on Flynn with that I haven't thought of. We are going to do seperate walks today as Yuri has training classes and so I'll take Flynn out and then Yuri and I walk to training classes (which is quite far). So I will start some work with Flynn then but any advice, ideas and the benifit of someone elses experiance would be awsome!

Thank you!

[BingBlaze n Skyla]

if hes growling when its only yuri it could be a mix of guarding and dominance but if hes doing it to you aswell its deffinately guarding

blaze will guard his food around skyla - but if i go upto him i can take his food off him no problem

[Andy]

You're doing it right.

keep them separate as they sort out the top dog slot.

As they settle down slowly move them closer until you can feed them together comfortably.

[Shadowpup]

I had them eatting together yesterday with out any scuffle. I had to sit there and take handfulls of food out and give it to Flynn so he'd let Yuri eat his food with out growling. But I fed them apart today. He is food possesive.. he growls at me and my daughter, so I told her to leave him be because he's still setteling in. She's really good with animals anyway as we've always had them since she was a baby.

He got so bad in the crate last night every time Yuri moved near Flynn's crate (they are next to eachother) Flynn started growling because I had let them have really high value bones in their bed as I didn't want any scrapping. I took it off him in the end because it was almost time for bed. He was pretty good in the crate, but when he saw I was awake he howled. When I told him to be quiet he started back chatting me No accidents in bed though which is great!

He's a really sweet boy, but I don't think a dog that has the potential to be 34kg should be a lap dog He does try though! Yuri loves him!

[Bec]

It sounds like resource guarding for sure.

I wouldn't allow a dog of mine to behave in that manner, no way. They aren't top dog - I am. I control the resources. I would be keeping them totally separated unless you are there to supervise.

[Shadowpup]

I had a word with Yuri's training class leader. She's going to send me some info on gaurding. Any advice on how to deal with him would be really welcome. I'm doing some research and walking them seperatly which has seemed to help a little.