While we continued to appreciate all those wonderful traits and characteristics of Rocket, we couldn’t ignore the fact that his behaviors, particularly his bullying behaviors toward Frank, began to escalate. In an effort to keep him contented, we hiked even more than usual, thinking that he would be more settled in the evening when we got home to relax.
During our hikes, Rocket was usually very accepting of Frank. The only time he really bullied on the trail is when Frank stopped to investigate a scent. Rocket would then dart to Frank and use his body to push him away so that he could take what Frank might have. Not only did this behavior seem to increase, but we also noticed that Rocket began to growl during this action. He had never growled before.
At home, we noticed that his behaviors were escalating, too. If Frank would lay beside me, Rocket would posture above him and force his way into Frank’s spot. It was obvious that his behaviors were becoming too possessive, and this caused great concern for Frank. In an effort to “show” Rocket who was in control, I would push him aside and scold him. I am sure he could identify that Frank was being protected. I’m not quite sure how dogs think versus what we think their thoughts are, but I know that this method was not working. In hindsight, I think it had the exact opposite effect. It seemed to only make him more determined to be the alpha dog. He began to posture around Frank more often. We could see his attitude change, seemingly out of nowhere. He would stop making eye contact with Frank or even with us, his body would become tense, and he would slowly “stalk” Frank as though he was looking for the perfect time and position from which to attack.
It wasn’t long after these behaviors escalated that our concerns turned to fear; Rocket attacked Frank. We had fear that Frank was injured, fear that Rocket could not be managed in our home, fear that his aggression might turn on us. Of all our challenges with Rocket, this was the worst. We were relieved to find that Frank was uninjured, and that Rocket’s attack was more show than physical, but now we knew our problems with Rocket might become too much for us to handle. We had moved past Rocket’s fear-based aggression, how, now, could we be dealing with this type of aggression?!
As the days passed, there would be more aggression toward Frank, and more strange behaviors from Rocket, mostly revolving around Frank. It was heartbreaking to watch. Rocket would attack Frank if Frank was licking or biting his own body because he thought that Frank had something that he wanted. He would try to intimidate Frank if he got too close to me, and sometimes it seemed that he would do it for no particular reason at all. He would be so quick that we often couldn’t prevent it from happening. There were several incidences of this behavior, but there were also days that Rocket would act as though Frank was his best buddy. At this point in Raising Rocket, we honestly had no idea where his story would lead us.
Next week, we begin Rocket’s 5th year with us…