Need advice

[Leann]

Can anyone give advice on occasional growling and snapping? I'd love to talk if anyone is willing. 

[Maryann,Roo and Tigger]

 Roo Always had trouble greeting anyone coming into the house.  I tried many things with little success.  He was just o excited to greet anyone.   Finally I tried putting him in his crate he was already crate trained and comfortable in it.

Amazing difference!   Rtoo remained laying down in his crate, happy as could be.  When the initial activity calmed down, voices lower, etc I would let him out.  Everyone knew to great him as if they had been there for hours.  Just a brief pat or rub and remove attention.  It was like magic.   Roo was an extremely friendly and very high energy dog.  I finally concluded that all that extra energy was simply too much for him to handle and crating him released of the stress of saying an excited hello to everyone.   Might be worth a try

[Leann]

Great advice! That's exactly what we will do. Thank you....

[Joani, Skadi & Elli]

You are very welcome.  Let me add that it's not good to have an over excited dog.  We think that they are exhibiting happiness, when they are actually stressed.  Good luck and here's an article that might help;http://grishastewart.com/resource-guarding/

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Your Bodhi sounds like my Vern. We had contractors in the home last Spring for over 60 days and Vern barked every single time they walked in the door. He just couldn't understand why they were in the house. They didn't belong there and that was that. Vern also gets nervous in loud, chaotic situations and sometimes, I will put him back in our room as a safe place for Vern. I have heard him growl in these situations and I don't want it to escalate. In my opinion, Bodhi was put into a situation that was too chaotic and loud for him and add in a pull toy and it was too much for him. I think crating him until the situation calms down will give Bodhi a safe place to go. If it seems to be occurring with the same male family member, I would certainly, for his own protection, keep him near you or crate him when this family member is around. It sounds like you have a good handle on this and it can be easily managed. Maybe a trainer could also help. 

[Joani, Skadi & Elli]

My trainer also encouraged me to take Skadi on outings .... to Tractor Supply, Soldans, or stand in front of your favorite grocery store where there are lots of people coming in and out.  The lesson here is to have them become desensitized to commotion and also socialization...if someone approaches you and ask if they can pet your dog.  During this exercise when you are outside a busy store, have Brodhi sit facing you.  The goal is to have Brodhi pay attention to you and ignore the people and commotion around her.  My trainer would say this is a lesson in "minding your own business"  This works when you are training them to ignore other dogs you may run into like on a walk, or in a store.  You are training your dog that YOU are the most important figure and they need to pay attention.  Have yummy treats ready.  They are sitting facing you, treat your friend.  When they look away at the people and commotion, wait for them to turn back and look at you....immediately treat.  Yes, you will go through lots of treats, I always had the lower calorie treats or small pieced of chicken, cheese, (this can be part of their total calories for a feeding) Hopefully working with your little sweetie will get her to calm down and you will have so much fun with folks noticing your furkid and Brodhi will consider this fun fun outing a great game and will love the attention she gets from you and others.  Exercising the mind is a great way to tire her out!  Let us all know how the training goes...it's great to have updates.