Unpredictable agrressive behaviour in my 11 month old schnoodle

Question
Hi!  I have been reading some of your other answers and I have a feeling that my dog may be suffering from resource guarding but I need to know for sure - either way, I have a feeling I will need to find a dog behavourialist.  Here goes...

In August, we adopted an 8-mth old schnoodle from a humane society.  We were told at the time that this poor little thing had been crated most of the time for the first 5 months of his life as he was taken care of by an elderly woman.  He was adopted out from the humane society and within a month, the new owner returned him citing that he was too aggressive for her young family.  We found him through petfinders and had dealt with aggressive dogs in the past so we decided to adopt him.  Here's the curious thing.  About 90% of the time, he is not aggressive.  He is a welcoming, extremely friendly dog with people and quite timid around other dogs.  It's the other 10% of the time I am deeply concerned about.  Anytime we come in or leave the house, he will grab one of our shoes.  If we manage to catch him grabbing the shoe within the first few minutes, we can get him to drop it.  However, if he has the shoe for more than 5 minutes, he will tense up, growl and snap at you when you try to take it away.  He has lunged at me and other family members but has not yet made contact.  My vet suggested putting my dog in a cage or in a room (sort of like a "naughty corner" and give him a time-out) and we have begun to do this although it is very scary because you have to pick him up and with him being tense, well I am opening myself up to be bitten.  We used to trade the shoe with a dog treat but I felt it was almost rewarding him and his actions have increasing gotten worse.  It is not limited to shoes.  If he is sleeping with me, and my mother comes into my room, he will again tense up and growl.  Vice versa if he is sleeping with my mother.  He has randomly picked objects (lottery ticket fallen on to the ground, the stuffing he just finished tearing out of my old blanket or socks) and behaved in the same manner.  It's not every single time but it is frequent enough to be concerned.  The odd thing is that he does not behave that way with his own toys.  The only time he tensed up was with a ball that we had put a treat in.  Other than that, he has not been agressive with any of his balls or chew toys.  My parents think that there is something mentally wrong with him.  We have taken him to puppy classes and he knows how to sit and such... but he is incredibly stubborn and when he gets into this agressive mode, he cannot be reasoned with.  What do you think?  Is it a mental problem?  Is there anything I can do to curb this behaviour before he attacks someone?  

Your advice would be greatly appreciated.  I love this little dog and I love my family.  I am torn apart.

Merry Christmas!
Michelle

Answer
Hi Michelle,

It's unclear to me whether your schnoodle tries to grab your shoes that you're wearing, or a shoe lying around when you go out?  This would make a big difference in determining what the behaviour is.

Your dog seems to have a number of issues, one of which sounds like it may be resource guarding, too numerous to go into here or attempt to give advice on via an e mail medium.  Your dog, by being crated for his first five months, also missed out on some sensitive socialization/development opportunities.  Although these can't be made up for, you can still work on your dog's socializiation and mental development.

It's quite good that you're taking classes with him and teaching him operant behaviours.  What you need to do now, and you're already part of the way there as you began your question saying so, is to hire a professional who deals with behaviour issues in dogs to work with and who can assist you with both classical conditioning and operant cues.  It sounds like your schnoodle guy has many good qualities and is well worth putting the time and effort into.

As far as not being able to be "reasoned with" once a dog gets into 'drive,' whether it's predatory drive or a survival skill such as resource guarding (which is normal in wild canids in order to ensure their survival, but not appropriate for our domestic companion dogs), it's best to prevent situations that allow your dog to go into 'drive' - this is called Management.  The fact is that the more your dog gets to practice and rehearse undesirable behaviours, the better your dog will become at them.  Leaving things around or giving your dog items that he will rehearse guard only assist the dog in his rehearsals, so pick these items up so your dog can't get them, and don't give him items that he typically guards.

I hope you can find a good Positive Only Methods trainer near you.  Realize that it can take weeks or months of daily work and management to make a dent in turning certain ingrained behaviours around.

You have a very happy holiday season, too!

Best regards,
Madeline, NY-NJDogTrainer Expert