Quote Originally Posted by LilacDragon
Using this method will only encourage the dog to continue doing what it is doing. Think about it and break it down a bit.

If the puppy is in your lap and another person approaches and the puppy becomes agitated. The puppy is hoping that by his/her bad behaviour, the approaching person will leave. If you discourage the approach of this other person then the pup has won! Then you are discouraging agitation while reassuring? I am not sure how YOU are doing this, but I see someone petting and telling the dog that everything is ok. That is rewarding the dog for it's aggressive behaviour!


This is how it works in my house.

The puppy is in my lap, another person approaches and the puppy becomes agitated/aggressive. I immediately stand up, greet approaching person, ignore aggressive puppy and approaching person and I walk away. Nothing - I repeat NOTHING is said to the offending puppy during this interaction.

This way, he looses what he is "protecting" and he is punished for behaving badly. Nothing is done to encourage his bad behaviour and nothing is done that might hurt him.
If you had read what I typed you would know that was a solution that I had READ about not TRIED.

I have not had to deal with serious overprotection issues with any of my dogs .