Luca Dean has been very possessive with me too! I am the alpha mommy and my fiance pets them and takes them out occassionally, but I do all the training, feeding, cleaning, etc. Anyway, Luca Dean can't stand when I pet one of the other three pets we have. He does this whining/growling/yapping thing until I am holding and only petting him!
My fiance's sister had the same trouble with her lab -- the dog's a 55 lb lap dog! Heather picked up a stuffed animal and was petting it, same way you described, and Abby (lab) went crazy. Then heather gave the stuffed thing to Abby and Abby would have nothing to do with it and followed Heather around the rest of the day.
Abby's come a long way since then. Now that she's older, she is not so protective, but the last boyfriend Heather had also had a lab for Abby to play with. When tha lab got left at home and he came to visit, Abby wanted to sit in between them on the couch. It got better though.
I can't leave the house without Luca Dean wailing right now! This codependency will pass though. It seems like a phase they go through -- like the Oedipus complex in humans -- and it passes. Once they get older and more independent, they still want your attention, but learn to share. I say this for dogs in general though -- maybe you could borrow a friend's dog for the day and play with both dogs just so Toby can begin to accept that there's a lot of you to go around? |