I have a 6 year old English Bulldog named Lola. She is spayed. We've had her since she was 8 weeks old, and she's been a great, calm, sometimes stubborn, mostly submissive dog. I've noticed over the last year or so that she's started barking at other dogs when she used to mostly ignore other dogs.
She's never shown aggression to any people until recently. The first time happened recently when she pooped in the house. I was scolding her and making her walk over to the poop so she'd remember what she'd done (I didn't find the poop until a couple hours after she'd done it), and she started growling and snarling at me. The most recent incident happened over food. We have a 15 month old daughter. She eats in a high chair, and the dog typically cleans up whatever she throws on the floor. My daughter was walking around one day, and my husband gave her a marshmallow. The dog went over to her and started trying to eat the marshmallow out of her hand. My daughter started crying because the dog wasn't being very gentle, but I don't think the dog was trying to hurt my daughter; just being too excited about the marshmallow. My husband walked over and tried to stop the dog by pushing her head away. The dog snarled at my husband and bit his finger, causing him to bleed. We yelled at her, and you could tell she felt bad. I'm becoming concerned because I feel like my dog is starting to get more aggressive as she gets older and I don't trust her like I used to, especially with my daughter around. It's like she loses her mind for a minute. How can I prevent the aggression? We've started locking the dog in another room when my daughter is eating so she can't eat any of the spillage on the floor, but I can't always prevent the dog from being around my daughter when she has food, especially as she gets older and grows out of the highchair. I would feel awful if my child got bit in the future, but I don't want to get rid of the dog if I can train this behavior out of her. What can I do?