Jealous...?

[Elyssa_38]

Hello,

I am super excited to have found a place where i can get some advice and just information on chows. My name is Elisa and my chow's name is Fiona. She will be turning 4 in June. I'm really excited, still need to find her a cool cake. She use to be an aggressive dog, although I don't consider her to be aggressive she just defends her momma. She loves everyone in the family. She allows everyone to touch her except for those who do not live in this house. When she is with me she doesnt bark or goes at anyone. Although she is a chow and when she has no leash one she ruuuns like crazy. But i love her it makes my day I've had to chase her a few blocks down the street a couple of times. Also when we go for our 1 mile walks everyday i noticed she does not bark at dogs unless im scared of the dogs lol. But even then I dont allow anyone to touch her. She does not like strangers and its okay I myself sometimes dont like strangers. One thing that I do have an issue with her is that she is a jealous dog.!! When i pet our other doggies in the house she turns around and just leaves, turns around and just does not look at me or she will just flat out pee in my face! (this is me) this is her face after she pees My father says it is because I spoil her. Which I do, but i dont allow her to do certain stuff she is a smart one. But any other chows out there that are jealous??
This is fiona when she was like 2-3 mos.


and this is her now. She recently got a hair cut. Summer is around the corner and i live in the desserts of California so I had to take her to the groomers.!



Have to go to bed now. but I hope to meet many of you and get much advice to help my baby with some of her issues.!

[Katjusa]

Hello, welcome

It sounds as if you didn't really consider socializing your chow...? not allowing anyone else to touch her is not okay or normal. She's bonded with you too much (yes I said too much ). chow are very protective of their owners and you shouldn't encourage that too much ... what happens when you get visitors? is she okay with them?
and that might also be the reason for her jealousy. she doesn't have contacts with others and doesn't see why you should.

Though I'm not really sure what you can do now... she's almost 4 and you cannot undo it all.
however, I'm sure that you'll get some god advice from others here I'm just a noob really

p.s. she looks lovely

[CinnasDad]

Hi there and welcome to the forum. I'm also new to this place. My wife and I adopted our Chow, Cinna in February and now she's 5 months old. Once we got her, I did a ridiculous amount of research on the breed and the consensus of almost every recourse out there says that socialization is the most important thing when it comes to raising Chows. The day we brought her home at 8 weeks we started taking her everywhere to meet new people and new dogs. We still make sure to get her out to new places and dog parks so she can be social. At this point she loves everyone and enjoys playing with other dogs. She even likes my niece and nephew who are 1 and 3. So I guess I'm agreeing with the other guy that she should be socialized. I'm no expert of course, and I'm sure it's harder to socialize an adult Chow. But I know it's possible. It does take more work to keep up on getting her in front of new people and dogs, but it's worth a try. Good luck.

[Cocoa]

I have to agree that socialization is key. Being in a condo we walk several times a day and Cocoa knows everyone (and their dogs) in the neighbourhood. I really think that is why she is so good with everyone she meets.
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[crickle_22]

Okay.. it sounds to me that your not seeing a BIG problem here... one that is easily overlooked when dogs are small, but when your pup gets bigger it will no longer be cute or tolerated if she is aggressive towards anyone! Trust me when I say that I speak from experience. We got our Koda when he was 15wks old.. he was VERY shy of strangers and we tried so hard to train this out of him.. and was able too for a little while, but once I thought things were fine and he was okay.. we didn't socialize him as much (i had medical reasons for that)... but Koda went back to being shy and weary of strangers... and now we are in a really bad spot where we have to give our bestfriend, the dog we love up because of the issues I wasn't able to fix. You are allowing your dog to behave this way and make excuses for it.. and that will bite you butt later on. I'm sure you love your dog but you are giving her total control and that is a very dangerous thing! You said that you chase her for blocks.. what happens if someone tries to help you, or she sees someone or something she doesn't like.. and she hurts them... then you will be faced with having to put your dog down or give her up... YOU DON"T WANT THAT! So do everything you can... socialize as much as you can, get a trainer involved, start acting like a pack leader and take away the control you have given her.... easier said then done... but don't make excuses for her.. because those excuses wont save her when the time comes.. and at the rate she is going.. the time will come if you don't fix it now...

[Auddymay]

With Fiona being 4, there are things you can change and others you cannot. Her ignoring other dogs-not a bad thing. Her escape and run- welcome to the world of stubborn. Mine and many others run when loose. Her not liking to be pet by outsiders- you can and should work toward allowing this, but you will have limited success. This would be more a lesson in tolerance. She will never like to be touched by strangers. Her jealousy and peeing on you- can be fixed. Your babying has made the Chow feel like you are lower ranked than she. You can fix it by being a better leader. Look up NILF in the history here. Good luck and welcome.

[crickle_22]

Oh goodness.. I saw the picture and didn't even see the she is turning four part!! I thought you ment 4 months.. SOOOOO SORRY!! My answer would have been completely different!! Auddymay really answered it well.....
I didn't realize she was already four!! BUT GOOD LUCK!! I'm sure you will gain a lot of success by NILF!

[Victory]

My mom and dad didn't really socialize their two chows, they weren't very social themselves and being retired they didn't go out a lot. When my mom passed away, MingToy was 10 and LiChi was 5, both intact males who weren't very approving of strangers, (they wouldn't lunge or attack but they weren't good at allowing stranger close either, LiChi in particular would stand and bark at people) I, however am a more social person, I have friends over and I go out a lot. I simply would correct them when they would go into anti-stranger mode, then I would ignore them. They soon learned that they could ignore strangers but that ANY barking or other behavior, including guarding me, (sitting or standing directly in front of me) was not going to be tolerated. One thing I did was if they went into guard mode, I would hold on to their collar and pull them behind me, if I was sitting, I'd pull them behind my legs and make them lie down facing away from the person(s) in front of me. This in a canine's eyes puts you firmly in charge; they'll watch you for clues to how they should behave. And that's what you want at all times. Them watching you, not them deciding what to do on their own.

Like Auddymay said I became their leader, and let them know that they had to follow MY lead. I had happier, more relaxed chows and my friends loved them.

[jazzmineong]

I agree with everyone else about socializing. It is very important. I had 4 chows previously, only one of them was well behaved around strangers. The other 3 would run and hide or sit and growl. We did not socialize them very well at all. Powder was well behaved. But Powder was also very jealous, so I believe you. When I came home from visiting someone with a dog, Powder would come and sniff me, she would then walk away from me and not let me touch her for at least an hour. She was never like this if I didn't have another dog's scent on me. She didn't mind, however, that I would play with the other dogs in the household. She would only act that way when I had a dog scent on me that she didn't know. It was very odd. We are doing things very differently with the two pups we have now. They are very socialized and go everywhere with us. They love strangers and love to be petted. They like other dogs as well. Nanuq likes them too much and gets too excited and I have to reign him in at times. They do pretty good though. Start out slow with her and I think you will do fine.