My gorgeous dog is avoiding me.

Hi. My name is Ellie and I have one gorgeous giant boy, Mr Jones, 19 months (salt and pepper) and one gorgeous giant girl, Lanibaloo, 15 weeks (black). Everything has been going swimmingly well (or so I thought) until just recently :-(. Jones has been enjoying Lani immensely and is a great role model. Lani is an amazing wee puppy. Housetrained early and not at all nippy or annoyingly in your face all the time. A few days ago Jones started sleeping out in the garage (they normally sleep in our bedroom in their own beds). I felt totally jilted but thought that maybe he was just hot. However, Jones now, is no longer even excited to see me in the mornings, his behaviour seems to be avoiding and and almost scared of me. He sometimes seems so stressed that he wont take treats from me! I have never, ever struck my dogs and I could count on one hand the times I've yelled at them (chasing chickens). Every one who meets Jones wants to take him home as he is such a sweety. Jones is the sort of personality that shuts down totally if you pressure him or raise your voice whereas Lani has the most amazing bounceback of any puppy I have owned and nothing much bothers her but she's not bolshy. I did get a bit uptight a few weeks back when I thought Jones obedience training was going backwards but I tried not to take it out on him at all as I realised the problem was more likely to be me and my inability to communicate to him just what I wanted. I've since stopped obedience training and am just concentrating on play and basic commands. I am so, so sad that I have found myself in this position (but trying, hopefully,to portrait a calm, happy energy). Jones seems well enough, still plays with Lani happily enough but our relationship seems to be showing a few cracks. Has anyone else experienced this or have any ideas as to how to fix things. I am absolutely baffled as I thought I had done everything as right as I could this time. Obviously this didn't happen overnight but unfortunately I didn't see it coming either. Help to get my roommate back would be most appreciated.

The first thing I would do would be to have a thorough checkup done, from blood work to eyes, since there appears to be no actual cause for this change in behavior.

Do you have separate time with each dog on a 121? Do you still take Jones out and have you kept to his routines or changed it to suit the new pup?

Thanks. Healthwise he has checked out just fine. I went to training tonight and was somewhat relieved to hear that other adolescent males had also gone through a similar "stage" of avoiding and "flinching" and for me to just basically ignore the behaviour and remain upbeat and just get on with things. It was also suggested that as much as he was enjoying Lani he probably wasn't enjoying sharing me and was probably experiencing a bit of puppy jealousy so I guess I just need to go with the flow, stay calm and not take it so personally!!! Sorry to have been such a drama queen but thanks for your help and I'll post at a later date about how it is all going :-).

Sorry to hear your dog is having some teenage issues but I would say like Jo to try and spend some quality time with him, enjoy a walk together and take his favourite toy, do something just you and him so you have some special time without the puppy. I dont have Giants myself so I dont know what they are like as adolescants but hopefully he'll be back to normal very soon!

Reinforcement is one of the best ways to train your dogs. It means giving the dog with rewards after a good deed done rather than punishing the dog in every bad deed that they do. This is also applicable to your children.