Resource guarding, reactivity, and separation anxiety
Hopefully this isn’t a huge wall of text, but it’s a long story so bear with me.
We rescued our girl about 7 months ago from a mutual friend. She was around 11 months old at the time. She’s a pitbull/staffy mix, about 55lbs.
What we didn’t know was that she was pregnant. She was pretty far along when we got her, and less than a week later she was giving birth to 11 puppies. We raised them, found them all homes, and kept one. Right as the puppies were weaning, she started running a fever and was just generally sick. After a lot of tests, she was diagnosed with IMPA. She was put on a steroid and then a second immunosuppressant — she’s since been weaned off the steroid.
So after about 10 weeks of madness, we thought we were getting our lives back. Kind of.
Bite history:
Since then, there have been a few incidents:
• My brother (level 2): He walked out of the bathroom and seemed to startle her.
• My girlfriend’s mom (level 2, no marks): She walked into the room we were in.
• My dad (level 2): She jumped and nipped at his face while I was getting her dinner ready and he was standing in the kitchen — possibly resource guarding.
My read on most of these is that she startles easily and reacts, rather than being outright aggressive. But I acknowledge the pattern is concerning.
Other incidents:
While we were at puppy class with the pup we kept, she put her paw through our front window and needed stitches. We caught it on camera, left class early, and got her to the ER. She can’t be crated when we’re out — the first time we tried, she broke out and we’re worried she’ll hurt herself if we push it. She healed from the stitches just in time to be spayed, which went smoothly. We replaced the old single-pane window with a much stronger modern one.
She generally does okay when we’re out now. She’ll hop on the counter out of boredom but we keep it clear, and she mostly spends her time working on her Pupsicle or watching out the front window. No issues with the new window.
Most recent incident (today)
All three dogs had their Pupsicles separately. When they were done, my girlfriend left the molds on the floor instead of picking them up. After dinner, she had hoarded all three Pupsicles inside her crate. Our 5.5 year old dog walked toward the crate and before we could call him back, she lunged and latched on. He tried to pull away and his skin tore in the process. He just got back from the ER with stitches — he’s doing fine, just drowsy from sedation.
For context, this has never been an issue at my house because I have a strict routine: each dog gets their Pupsicle in their crate, and the molds are picked up before anyone is near each other. Today that routine wasn’t followed. So while it’s clearly resource guarding, and I think it’s manageable with the right protocols in place, the cumulative incident history has me thinking management alone might not be enough.
I’m not scared of her personally, but I’m anxious about her hurting someone else or our other dogs. I also hate leaving the house not knowing if she’s going to hurt herself. Part of the challenge is that we’re still figuring out who she actually is — she came to us, immediately went into mom mode, then spent months recovering from IMPA, and is really only now settling into normal life. We’re still learning her.
Looking for any advice, experience with similar dogs, or thoughts on next steps — whether that’s behavioral intervention, medication, or something else entirely