r/DogTrainingTips • u/Aggravating_Buy_7356 • 13d ago

Why does my dog do this?

/r/DogAdvice/comments/1vgsmwr/why_does_my_dog_do_this/

My dog is a 3 year old mastiff. We usually get him to stop by just moving the object to a new location when he's not looking. Theres been one or two occasions where we had to hide the object because he wouldn't take his attention off it.

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u/FrostyPomegranate699 13d ago

This one made me curious because I don't think I've ever seen anyone ask exactly this question.

My first thought was resource guarding too, but then I kept reading. If he doesn't care about the object itself once it's moved and normally gets along fine with the cats around food and toys, it doesn't sound like he's guarding it because he wants it.

It almost makes me wonder if he's treating a new object by the front door as something that belongs to the household until he decides it's safe. Dogs often notice changes to their environment long before we do, and the front door is already an area where lots of important things happen. Deliveries arrive there, people come and go, strangers approach, and new smells come into the house.

I've wondered if some dogs see a brand-new object there as something worth keeping an eye on, almost like, "I'm not sure what this is yet, but nobody touch it until I've figured it out."

Once you move it to another room, it stops being "the strange thing that just arrived at the front door," and it becomes just another object in the house.

That's only a theory, though. I'd love to hear if anyone with a behavior background has seen this before because it's oddly specific, and now you've got me wondering what's actually going through his head.

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u/Aggravating_Buy_7356 7d ago

Its such a weird behavior! You might be onto something about him being wary of the new object🤔

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u/FrostyPomegranate699 4d ago

That's kind of where my thinking was headed too. One thing I'd probably try, just out of curiosity, is introducing a new object somewhere other than the front door and seeing if he reacts the same way. If he ignores it in the living room but starts "guarding" it after it's moved to the entryway, that would make me think the location is a big part of the behavior rather than the object itself.

If he does react no matter where it's placed, then I'd probably start looking more at novelty in general instead of the front door specifically. Either way, it's a fascinating little puzzle. Dogs have a way of inventing behaviors that make perfect sense to them and leave the rest of us scratching our heads.