Help! Evening aggression

[rainbow47]

Can anyone give me some advice please? Our Cockapoo, Teddy, will be two years old in February. He has always been a very friendly, happy dog. We are struggling to get him to leave/drop things he shouldn't have, but he will usually give them up eventually for his favourite treat. But the thing that concerns us most at the moment is that he gets very aggressive and snappy when we try to put him to bed. He has always slept downstairs by himself. He tends to follow us upstairs as we get ready for bed, then gets his teeth cleaned. After that, we used to just scoop him up and take him downstairs to bed. But for the past few weeks he has been very aggressive, growling and biting when we try to take him downstairs to bed and wants to sleep in our room. Does anyone have any ideas why this would happen and how's best to deal with it? Thank you!

[kendal]

is it the being picked up that is causeing the problem, does he mind being picked up the rest of the time.

i would stop picking him up. pop a lead on him and take him downstares. give him something nice for bed time.
but to be honest if it was me i would stop him falowing you upstairs alltogether, if he cant respect your desision for him to go downstares then he looses his right to go upstairs in the first place.

[wellerfeller]

Love the fact you brush his teeth before bed time!!!!!:D
I would agree with Kendal, he sounds like he is trying it on and getting a bit too big for his boots....demoted to downstairs for him!

[JoJo]

Yep use a lead as Kendal says .. he may just feel like he is in charge of this bed time situation ... or be guarding his area or something .. so many different types of aggression and reasons why aggression is triggered .. try to regain control of the situation as pack leader .. be firm and consistant and use a lead when you expect any growling, snapping etc ...

You may like to speak to a dog behaviourist too ... ask your vet for a local one.

We all love our dogs and I know how much it upsets us when they react in a way we never thought we would see ... so I feel for you ... but you are doing the right thing by asking for help before it gets out of hand xxx

[rainbow47]

Thank you everyone for your helpful suggestions. I'll let you know how we get on!
The lead sounds like a good idea. I'd already twigged on not letting him upstairs in the evening and cleaning his teeth downstairs, but sometimes he just shoots up there before I can grab him!

[Soo]

A stairgate might be an idea for a few weeks til he gets to grips with being a downstairs only dog :-)

[rainbow47]

Thanks for the stairgate suggestion. We've got one somewhere that we used when he was a puppy. May have to dig it out again for a bit!