Chow seemingly randomly aggressive- help?

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supkirbs
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Chow seemingly randomly aggressive- help?

Post by supkirbs »

Hey, all. First post on these boards but have lurked since my boyfriend and I got our first chow baby a little under 3 years ago. Mugen lives at my boyfriend's house, he will typically bark to alert us of cars pulling up, and will struggle to get outside if he can't see who the visitor is (for example, if we step outside to greet the pizza guy), but with any visitors that actually step in, he is fine, eating up their attention for all of 30 seconds before walking away and sitting down bored with it (in typical chow fashion :wink:). None of this is an issue.

When walking him in the neighborhood, he is fine with other walkers/dogs. Same when taking him to petsmart or a similar place, occasionally he'll pull away if a child tries to pet him without him smelling them first, but he typically does not growl or act aggressive.

However, the only time we seem to have any minor issue is when he is in another home- we have brought him to stay at my house a few times, and he is friendly with my female roommate. However, my male roommate (who is a very tall and large man), he is always a bit aggressive to. My male roommate always waits for Mugen to approach him, never trying to pet him first, and even crouches down so he won't seem as intimidating. But even if we greet the roommate, stand near him, etc, Mugen will growl and bark at him. Sometimes he seems to make progress, accepting a treat from him or coming close to sniff him curiously. But he is always nervous and if the roommate goes into a room after Mugen has calmed down a bit and stopped growling, when he comes out it's back to square one with him growling at him again. I don't believe he would actually bite him, but it does make me nervous. From what I can see, it feels like Mugen is very nervous/afraid of him, more than guarding us. (Even if we stand near the roommate, he'll run right past us, scared.)

The only other time he's done anything similar was when taking him to visit my mother's house. He was fine with my dad (who is my roommate's height, but thin) mom, sister, brothers (age 20 and 12) but growled at my stepfather who is not very tall at 5'5. Originally we thought it may have just been due to my roommate's large stature and that he was intimidated by him, but my stepfather is a small man. Mugen would growl and bark at him while wagging his tail and accepting a treat from him also.

My mother has two female collies, and older one and one who is only about a year old and very rambunctious. Mugen gets along fine with them, a couple times he has had to bark at the younger one as she would annoy him for hours trying to get him to play with her (we tried our best to keep her from pawing at him too much, but not to much avail) but only in a typical dominant-dog way and did not harm her, so he hasn't shown any real aggressiveness towards other dogs. My boyfriend's sister has a cat who lives in the house with them, who he plays with frequently, and the cat is pretty rough with him, digging his nails into Mugen's 'beard' fur and staying there even if Mugen drags him on the floor, lol. But he's never harmed him, either.

Again, at this point, I don't think he'd truly bite anyone, but to me it just seems like he feels more nervous in a home that isn't his and is overly suspicious/aggressive. I don't *have* to have him over to my house, but I like him visiting and I feel bad that he's so nervous when the roommate is home. I'd like to ease any anxiety he's feeling. Any advice on what we can do to ease some of that, or any general training tips for my sweetheart scaredycat chow? :)

(Sorry if any of this was written incoherently, it's 1:30 AM here and I'm sleepy, waiting on said roommate to get home from work so I can make sure Mugen knows he's home before going to bed.)
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my mugen, born september 11th, 2009
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Cam Atis
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Re: Chow seemingly randomly aggressive- help?

Post by Cam Atis »

Dogs have a sixth sense all their own. They can be pretty negative to a person. They seemed to be able to sense something about a person that we dont sense as we tend to rely on external appearances of a person while dogs dont know the difference if a person is nicely dressed or has perfect table manners.
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Rio
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Re: Chow seemingly randomly aggressive- help?

Post by Rio »

That was kind of along the lines I was going Cam, dogs don't care how much money a person makes or if they have a nice car or home, they seem to be able to dig deep into our souls and uncover hidden truths.
Certain smells can set seemingly happy-go-lucky dogs off.
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