I am sad to see it seems after years of being an almost-perfect dog, Layla has been having some issues lately.
Our issue now seems to be possessiveness. She is fine with us taking toys away from her, she's fine with me sticking my hand in her kibble and taking that away from her. But there are a few other things she's been getting aggressive about...
This is weird, but if I am doing laundry and leave the hamper downstairs, I can NOT put my underwear on the floor (I'll pile the rest of my clothes there) because she will lay on it and if we go near her, she will snarl, growl, and snap. For being a paraplegic dog, she is fast to turn around and grab us. She turns into a totally different dog. One of us has to hold her out of the way with a leg while the other picks up the clothes, and she will be snarling the whole time.
Another difficulty we have is that we have to be very gentle with her because of her IVDD.. pushing her away a little too roughly or putting her on her back and twisting the wrong way could really damage her discs, so we need to figure out how to correct her and get her out of that mode without being very physical, or physical at all. She is treated like glass because of how easy it is to bulge another disc
Last week, a coworker came to my desk and asked if Layla could have apple. I said yes, I give her little bits of apple sometimes. He rolled a whole apple to her
I didn't think she even knew what to do, it was cute for 10 minutes she was pushing it around with her nose and licking it. Then she started chomping. I know I probably should have taken it away before she chewed at all. But after she took a few bites I tried to take it and there was NO way she'd let me have that apple. She growled, she ran, she snapped. I got her attention with a bully stick and took it away when I had a chance.
Today, a coworker who sits right beside me was away from her desk, and Layla was laying by her jacket and bags. She loves Layla and always tells me to let her stay between our desks, she has no problem with her being over there. So today, she came back to her desk and knelt down to say hello to Layla, and Layla snarled and snapped at her hand
She has NEVER acted out like this before. Luckily, my coworker was not hurt at all and laughed it off, but she was surprised, and I was even more surprised. I found out her lunch was in one of those bags, and maybe she was acting possessive over that.
I just don't know. For the rest of the day she's staying just at my desk. I'm lucky she didn't hurt my coworker because I depend on being able to bring her in with me. Something has to change!