The Schnauzer Forum

Hello, my elderly Mother has two lovely 5 year old miniature schnauzers. She’s owned schnauzers for over twenty years without any issues. Her male schnauzer has developed aggressive behaviour the last few years, including daily growling and beating of his teeth. This usually happens in the following situations;
* When he climbs onto the bed and tries to climb either onto her stomach or above her head on the pillow. When she try to remove him he growls, and gets worse when I move him. He shows his teeth and often doesn’t back down. She distracts him by being playful to get him out of the mood.
* When she’s sitting on the sofa he tries to climb high on her lap as possible. If I block him or move him he growls. If she pushes him off he begins to snap and show his teeth. If she disciplines him sternly the behaviour gets worse. Again he can be successfully distracted if she becomes playful.
* If the dog picks up something on a walk and my Mother tries to get it out of his mouth, he becomes growly and will try and bite my Mother.

The dog also exhibits this behaviour with others, such as family members. He does suffer from intense anxiety during thunder storms or windy days, and will become anxious and aggressive as a result. My Mother will often be awake most of the night on rainy evenings as the dog is distressed and she is awake trying to console him.

The other dog is delightful and is kind and fairly relaxed. She’s is dominated by the male dog who does push her around quite a bit.

The situation is becoming untenable, so would love some perspectives or advice on how to manage this difficult situation. My Mother has taken both dogs to training and has visited a behaviourist already for help. None of these things seem to be working and we are now considering rehoming the dog.

Thank you

Hi Emma and welcome to the Forum

It is not really possible for anyone on the Forum to do more than offer suggestions as you really would be best seeking a professional behaviourist to assess what the issues may be that are causing this behaviour in the male mini schnauzer.

Just a few things to note:

It is never a good idea to be confrontational with a dog such as pushing, hitting or even being overly physical with them in the hope of resolving these kind of issues as they will only worsen the situation. If it is possible to distract or encourage the dog to get down, back off etc. with a game, a toy or a treat that is a much better strategy to calm the situation and always use rewards when the dog does what you want rather than punishment for something you don’t want.

Trying to physically get something out of a dog’s mouth when they want to keep it is always a trial. The best advice I can suggest is to assess how dangerous to the dog it will be for him to eat / carry the item he has picked up and, if it is not a hazard, ignore it….or (and this includes something that could be hazardous to the dog) carry with you some really tempting food sausages / ham / cheese whatever the dog really loves and try to encourage him to drop the other item in exchange for the treat…or a toy if that is more likely to tempt him.

“Resource guarding” is a term that is often used for behaviours where a dog is possessive over food / beds / toys / certain family members etc and this is really something that should be trained to avoid when puppies are very young. However, with a lot of patience it can be trained in an older dog.

It sounds as though the male is actually lacking in self confidence and this is being displayed in his ‘aggressive /defensive’ reactions. .

However, I really would also suggest that you have him checked over by a vet as if this behaviour has happened recently or got worse recently there may be a health / pain issue which is making the dog more likely to react in this way.

Thank you, that’s very helpful. We’ve taken him to the vet several times and they can’t seem to find anything wrong. Feels like the behaviourist is most likely solution. We shall try again.

Thanks again