Best way to deal with possessive dog?

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shadowboy

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We picked up a dobe pup on Wednesday wrongly assuming Nanook would be fine with its arrival- I have never ever ever ever heard him growl at another dog. Even ones that have been to stay for a bit when we've dog sat or when had friends bring their dogs over- even ones that hang off his face and jump on him etc- and dogs we have met in the park- he's never shown any possessiveness. We can take toys off him no problem. We just say "drop it" and it's instant. However, he's taken a dislike to pup and won't allow her to play with anything. How should I deAl with this?
 
We would never let them share food but when she's playing he wants it and growls at her. She runs off and he takes toy and brings it to me. I don't want to get into the situation where they have to live seperately as we were so keen to find him a dog that he could play with and burn some energy! If she sniffs something like the oven door (must smell like food) he growled at her also- sooooo unlike him. Is it jealousy? Insecurity?
 
I know when we first had Pip our Lancashire Heeler puppy Diesel our male Dobe would growl if she came near him but I dont think he knew quite what she was, we were worried he would eat her as she was tiny but I think he was a little afraid of her. We never pushed it and never allowed her to push herself on to him. Darcy on the other hand was very mumsy with Pip and used to play with her and even bring a toy over to her. Diesel used to watch them playing together and he sort of decided she was ok and also used to play with her as well, he would try to mug her for her toys but it was closely supervised, toys were never left lying around and they were never allowed to be alone with her.

This didnt happen over night I would say it took 2/3 weeks before we could say he fully accepted her, Diesel never took it to Nanooks level though, it does sound like insecurity and resource guarding so I would be very careful. Make sure he gets lots of input from you as well but dont allow him to carry on this behaviour as it could escalate. There is such a thing as puppy licence but not all dogs adhere to it so caution is the order of the day.

Finally where is the photo of this Dobe puppy and what are you calling her.
 
hmmm no idea how to get the pictures to show up directly- its all changed since i last posted pictures!

Thanks for all the comments :)
 
Well nanook means polar bear in Inuit. Because of her big bumbly legs she's very clumsy so we called her mishka which is clumsy in Russian (I'm half Russian) plus it didn't seem fair to give her a plain name when nanooks was so unusual!
 
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