Sampson, Delilah and I went to play group tonight. Our trainer (Sara) sent me a text yesterday and asked if anyone was interested in play group tonight. We don’t usually go to play group since it is normally on Wednesday night and the dogs are tired from daycare but we are expecting more winter weather in the next couple of days, so Sara thought we might like to give the dogs a chance to run and play.
Now I know that Sampson is a “people” dog; when all the other dogs are running around and playing, Sampson likes to hang out with the people and get rubbies. So here we are with lots of dogs running around and Sampson is hanging with the “peeps.” I sat down and started chatting with one of the ladies who is in our Thursday night obedience class; she has a HUGE Alaskan Malamute named Brockway. Well Brockway came up to us while Sampson was being petted and Sampson got a bit aggressive. Immediately I put him down on the floor and held him down until he relaxed.
Now Brockway is challenged so he keeps looking at Sampson and Sampson keeps looking at him and before you know it, my sweet boy and Brockway had a little altercation. I dragged him out of there and stuck him in the other room where he nonchalantly walked around pretending it didn’t bother him, but I ignored him until he was laying at the gate waiting to come in.
Sara thinks he is jealous (even though some dog “experts” will say that dogs don’t get jealous.) Sounds like jealous to me, what do you think?
Dogs definitely get jealous of eachother, although the experts may want to call it a different name since we humans love to attribute human emotions to our pets; anthropomorphism seems to be a natural thing on our part when it comes to a beloved “pet” member of the family! Case in point, my sister in law had to suddenly keep our puppy Molly for 2 days during an emergency, Their dog Bailey was extremely “put out” by the sudden introduction of this tiny interloper. Bailey was extremely jealous & in 7th Heaven when Molly finally went away, she raced around & brought out all her toys to interact with “her” people again without that pest around anymore!