Mimi's new behavior...

[magenta321]

We have only had Mimi since Tuesday, and each day we get to see a little more of her in action. She's been slowly becoming less and less shy.

Mimi has bonded with me more than with my boyfriend. Not that she hasn't bonded with him. It's just that each new behavior is revealed first to me, then to him.

Her new behavior is perplexing me. I don't know what to make of it. She seems to want to play. Having never been anyone pet before, I'm not sure she knows how to play. It started last night when I gave her a toy. She has been ignoring it. I played with her the way I play with a cat, in order to get it interested. She likes to see it move around, that's when she will pay attention to it. So I was moving it back and forth on the floor in front of her. That's when she lunged, at my face. She put her mouth on my mouth. There were no teeth involved. There was also no licking involved. There was no growling involved. It was just a very quick lunge into my face. The first time I thought it was just an accident, but she's repeated this behavior 3 more times. The last time, she hit her nose against my nose. I felt like Marsha Brady getting hit by the football. Again, no biting, growling, etc. but a swift nose bump to my nose.

Each time she's done this (except the very first one) I've corrected her. Anyone know what this behavior is? Is it aggression? I'd like it to stop ASAP. I'm also trying not to scare the crap out of her just as she is coming out of her shell (it doesn't take much to do that so far). Sigh.

[pluckyduck]

I'd take it as aggression. Aggression will escalate if the dog doesn't figure the order of things.

My Baxie boy is the first aggressive dog I've ever had (aggressive toward owner). We've had some real challenges with him. Part of it is his personality and I'm sure part of it is the rescue aspect. He didn't come from a horrible background, just not a good one.

If you can get Mimi training (PetSmart runs classes, don't they?), I really think you should. We've gotten the order sorted out with Baxter but it took awhile..... real training, not what I did, is the right way to go.

[jgibson2[$]]

One of the most useful things we had when training our dog not to jump, etc., was a length of leash about a foot long. We could leave it on the dog any time we had her out of the crate. It lets you yank the dog down immediately when any kind of aggressive behavior occurs without the nuisance of a long leash.

Face-licking is submissive, but this behavior definitely sounds aggressive -- and in any case, it's something you want to discourage.