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First off: Sorry this is really long!
Our male maltese Mayo was bought back in July 2010 from a couple that had several maltese dogs (at least 1 mom and dad and about 8 or so puppies, we were told that Mayo was 8 months old). I know Maltese can't carry that many pups, so I'm assuming they had some other adult maltese dogs too. Mayo was very timid and didn't want anything to do with us at first (as were the rest of the puppies, but the adults were very friendly). We decided to get him anyways.
About a month later we were given a female Pug we named Pixie. She's about the same age as Mayo. She is extremely friendly and well tempered.
Neither of our dogs are fixed and Mayo mates with her quite often. We often visit (about 1 or 2 times a week) with my mom and bring our dogs with us to her home. She has a male maltese named Casper that is also not fixed. He always mates with Pixie every time we bring the dogs over. Mayo and Casper growl at each other quite a bit and don't play together. We assume they are fighting to be the alpha and both want to dominate Pixie. Mayo and Casper have gotten into about 3 different nearly-biting type attacks where we had to intervene to stop them.
Although we have had the alpha dog issues at my mom's house, we have never had those kinds of problems with Mayo and Pixie at home before. Mayo is very submissive over eating whereas Pixie growls for like all of 2 seconds and Mayo always submits and leaves until Pixie is done eating. Pixie is really not aggressive about anything. Mayo is very timid around new people and will run away from most anyone until he learns that they aren't a threat. Other than these problems he hasn't been aggressive.
However for about the past week we have seen a large increase in the amount of aggressive behavior from Mayo. The first time we noticed this was when my 4 year old daughter came into our bedroom in the middle of the night one night when she had woken up. He growled at her and wouldn't stop until I started petting him and had her pet him to calm him down. My daughter wakes a lot at night and he has since been growling at her every time. We thought this was just a way of protecting his territory at night and didn't think too much about it.
But now he is even growling and snapping at Pixie sometimes for no apparent reason. He growls really bad at my daughter nearly every time she comes close to him. He is very jealous over my attention to Pixie. He still submits over food though. I am really afraid he's going to attack my daughter or Pixie. He's just plain in a bad kind of mood all the time and I don't know why.
I have usually just petted him and told him no when he starts growling. And sometimes I have just ignored him and watched carefully so I could intervene if needed. In the case of my daughter, I have tried to teach her to leave him alone when he growls at her but she desperately wants him to be friendly again. I don't know what to do. I love Mayo, but am willing to give him to a rescue facility so they can rehabilitate him so another family can adopt him.
Any advice?
Our male maltese Mayo was bought back in July 2010 from a couple that had several maltese dogs (at least 1 mom and dad and about 8 or so puppies, we were told that Mayo was 8 months old). I know Maltese can't carry that many pups, so I'm assuming they had some other adult maltese dogs too. Mayo was very timid and didn't want anything to do with us at first (as were the rest of the puppies, but the adults were very friendly). We decided to get him anyways.
About a month later we were given a female Pug we named Pixie. She's about the same age as Mayo. She is extremely friendly and well tempered.
Neither of our dogs are fixed and Mayo mates with her quite often. We often visit (about 1 or 2 times a week) with my mom and bring our dogs with us to her home. She has a male maltese named Casper that is also not fixed. He always mates with Pixie every time we bring the dogs over. Mayo and Casper growl at each other quite a bit and don't play together. We assume they are fighting to be the alpha and both want to dominate Pixie. Mayo and Casper have gotten into about 3 different nearly-biting type attacks where we had to intervene to stop them.
Although we have had the alpha dog issues at my mom's house, we have never had those kinds of problems with Mayo and Pixie at home before. Mayo is very submissive over eating whereas Pixie growls for like all of 2 seconds and Mayo always submits and leaves until Pixie is done eating. Pixie is really not aggressive about anything. Mayo is very timid around new people and will run away from most anyone until he learns that they aren't a threat. Other than these problems he hasn't been aggressive.
However for about the past week we have seen a large increase in the amount of aggressive behavior from Mayo. The first time we noticed this was when my 4 year old daughter came into our bedroom in the middle of the night one night when she had woken up. He growled at her and wouldn't stop until I started petting him and had her pet him to calm him down. My daughter wakes a lot at night and he has since been growling at her every time. We thought this was just a way of protecting his territory at night and didn't think too much about it.
But now he is even growling and snapping at Pixie sometimes for no apparent reason. He growls really bad at my daughter nearly every time she comes close to him. He is very jealous over my attention to Pixie. He still submits over food though. I am really afraid he's going to attack my daughter or Pixie. He's just plain in a bad kind of mood all the time and I don't know why.
I have usually just petted him and told him no when he starts growling. And sometimes I have just ignored him and watched carefully so I could intervene if needed. In the case of my daughter, I have tried to teach her to leave him alone when he growls at her but she desperately wants him to be friendly again. I don't know what to do. I love Mayo, but am willing to give him to a rescue facility so they can rehabilitate him so another family can adopt him.
Any advice?
