Jealousy...

I have a very jealous person in my life.. this person fights anything that comes around me, blocks anything that gets close to me, and scowls at anything that may get more attention than her. If you haven't guessed already, this particular "person" is Isabelle. Most of this intense jealousy stems from the presence of other dogs. As I have shared with you, we have other dogs in our household. Her biggest enemy... Matty. My sister and I have insanely spoiled these dogs. Matty and Isabelle can be playing and having the best time ever until one of us step into the picture. We can reach down and touch either of the dogs and a full scale dog fight breaks out. Isabelle thinks she in invincible. She would take on a whole Pit Bull dog pound if the opportunity arose. We have to watch her very close to make sure this does not happen. Just yesterday she went for a dog that's nose was as big as her whole body. He was coming close to my boyfriend Michael  and I wanting attention and she went nuts. Isabelle is like me, she only has a select number of people that she is close with, but once she has let you in, she is not letting you go. If anyone gets too close to me, she gets between us. If Michael is at my house, Isabelle lays on his shoulder curled up glaring at me, daring me to get close. She knows the people that we belong with, my Mom, Dad and Sister, Michael and my grandmothers. She has adopted a few more people along the way, but its not easy stealing her heart. So if your around any of us and she is not sure... you better watch out. Oh, and don't even think about bringing another dog into the picture or its over!!

You can see in the picture Isabelle lurking in the background as Matty asks for attention. Martha Stewart's article on training jealous dogs says to only give a dog attention if one dog is around. If they are both around make them ask for attention. You can use tricks such as asking the dog to sit or do a trick. This would be helpful if you were just starting to raise two new dogs. I have a feeling this will not go over too well in my house!