Quote Originally Posted by Giselle View Post
Okay, here's an honest question, and I'm not trying to sound pedantic or anything, but why on earth did your girlfriend continue to lean over after the dog had already growled???
this was my fault. He will make growling noises sometimes when I play wrestle with him, so I assumed he wasn't seriously growling and told her to try again...very stupid, I know. I've stopped the wresting/rough play with him, so as not to encourage aggressive behavior.

As I've said, he's a really, really friendly dog even with strangers so it was very surprising. But I agree, I should have told her to back off. I've been trying the NILIF approach for a few days now, thanks for the info. We adopted this dog from a shelter (he's 6 yo) and he was somewhat trained, so it's easy to get him to sit, stay, etc. and he's already picking up on the new rules. He was actually trained not to jump on furniture, this was a bad habit we encouraged, but he now knows that he can't jump up until we pat the couch to invite him, and he always gets down immediately.

I think my main concern is that he's somewhat obsessive with me still - always staring at me and not paying attention to my gf. I don't think he's challenging me - if I make eye contact he'll look away, I guess he's just looking for me to give him attention. But I want him to see my gf as my equal, and thus have an alpha role to him too. We are going to try to get the two of them to bond via walking, feeding etc. I'll update on any progress.