Female chow growling (updated)

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cybrdragon
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Female chow growling (updated)

Post by cybrdragon »

This is an old post that for some reason never showed up in the forums within a useful time frame and never got replied to. See my reply for an update on Grizzy.

Hi, I am a long time lurker and first time poster. We have a 2 year old female blue chow named Grizzy. She has always been above average active for a chow. My parents raised chows and theirs and mine back then were all very laid back in temperament. My family was a bit disappointed in Friday's temperament as they were expecting a couch potato, but we have carried on and she became a part of the family and we love her. Except for my son who mostly ignores her, but he ignores us too as a 17 year old mostly interested in gaming. She was supposed to be his dog but ended up mostly imprinting on me as I spent more time with her. Lately she seems to like hubby best because he walks with her and plays with her outside more.

She has been through 4 or 5 heats now and we are still debating whether to breed her. She has some odd quirks that are not very chow-like. For example, when she came to us at about 7 weeks she was constantly licking us and everything. We mostly broke her of this habit but she will still do it if allowed. Never had a chow that was a licker. She was also very mouthy for awhile as a puppy and gets mouthy still when really excited while playing. But she doesn't bite or scratch. She got carsick every single time we took her anywhere and puked in the car, and we took her places less and less because of it. She also is super high energy and can't handle going a day without a couple of sessions of intense exercise, which is unfortunate because we aren't as active as we used to be. She does tend to lay around the rest of the time. She is a very alert guard dog and has a high prey drive and likes to chase and harass our two cats. We have not been able to train her out of this. She doesn't hurt them but often won't leave them alone both inside and outside. She has always been a super picky eater and would go days without eating something she didn't like. I finally broke down and decided to start cooking food for her. She loves the mixture I have been making with the help of relevant websites on dog nutrition and now eats well. She is a typical chow in most respects with the stubborness , high intelligence, and wariness around strangers. During the Covid situation, we have not been able to socialize her at all and she is super distrustful of strangers to the point where I would not trust her around anyone outside the family right now.

Which brings me to the current problem. She started being food possessive with a nice bone treat and growled at us. This escalated into a situation where we cannot go near her if she has any kind of special food. She doesn't growl about her normal food but she will guard it if she doesn't eat it all and we leave it out so we started picking her bowl up after meals. She likes to try and steal the cats' food and the other day when my husband came in with her and she went to the cat food bowl she growled at him when he tried to get her away from it. So we keep those put up too. She started growling at my son if he happened to bump her while she was sleeping in the living room. She is super grouchy when in heat and growls about every little thing. She got annoyed with me for trying to make her go potty in the rain a few days ago and growled really loudly at me. It was downright scary. She basically growls any time anyone tries to ask her to do something she doesn't want to do. She just went through a harder than usual heat. My husband took her for a walk outside the fence and she came back limping. We waited a few days to see if maybe she stepped the wrong way and it would go away. She's been very grouchy since then and acts tired. She is limping from time to time and it seems to be a front leg. I began to wonder if she was somehow pregnant. I am not seeing any obvious signs but am waiting and hoping she isn't. I'd not see how she could be but she was outside by her solar for a little while at a time during heat, but usually just sitting right outside the door.

Tonight I was sitting by our bed and she was sleeping in the floor beside it. Hubby came into the room and greeted her and patted her tummy which he dies often. She low growled at him. He said its ok Grizzy its me. She stood up awake and still low growled at him. She did it three times before he walked away and she finally followed him and acted like everything was fine. He was a little disconcerted. I thought maybe she wasn't fully awake or something. There is a lot going on here and I know this post is long. I am not sure how to handle to escalating growling. I also don't think a stranger could come into our house right now safely. And I don't trust her behavior enough to take her to the vet because they are still doing drop off only and I think she would growl at them or be traumatized by being alone with them. She needs her shots soon and to be seen for this limp. Please someone tell me what to do. I've never had these problems with any other chows. This is our first Chow as a family after about a 15 year span of time from my parents breeding them and having one of my own as a teenager long ago. I am also not sure if I want to breed her with these behavioral issues. But that is the least of our worries right NIW. Thanks for any help. Frizzy is a super sweet dog most of the time and I want to figure out how to overcome these problems.
Last edited by cybrdragon on Wed Aug 11, 2021 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
cybrdragon
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Re: Female chow growling

Post by cybrdragon »

No one ever replied to this but I wanted to update my post to add that Grizzy had pyometria and had to have emergency surgery a few days after my post. We were sad because we wanted to have a litter of puppies, but very happy she was able to be saved. All the aggressive behavior stopped and I think it was because of raging and out of balance hormones due to her uterine condition. She is a much better pet now after being spayed and noe I wish we had done it earlier. If I had known of her susceptibility to get this condition at such a young age I would have had her spayed much earlier.
Okiechick79
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Re: Female chow growling (updated)

Post by Okiechick79 »

Glad she is good.
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