01/11/2026
Jax is one of those dogs that can have mixed feelings about affection and being cuddled. He will initiate it sometimes, other times he will decide that he’s uncomfortable and get a bit funny to create space. Occasionally he will initiate affection and then growl at anyone else that approaches. This behaviour starts creeping into the realm of resource guarding, but could also just be that he is trying to create space because he feels stuck and doesn’t have the skills to calmly resolve the problem.
Sometimes I’ve seen Jax go to greet a stranger, but when he’s interacting with them he becomes a bit uncomfortable and his body language changes, sometimes he will then come and hide behind me. He has improved greatly with this purely by me just interacting with the people in a friendly way and heavily praising Jax.
I want to create a bit of structure and clarity around affection and cuddles. I want his family to be able to invite Jax into their space to initiate affection, but also be able to ask Jax to move away and end the interaction on their terms.
I also want Jax to learn to accept some discomfort around restraint and even feeling a little trapped and try to change the emotion around it by helping him understand that nothing bad is going to happen and that the interaction can end in a pleasant way.
Sometimes I feel conflicted about working through things like this with a dog, and I’m choosing to address it with Jax, because he does enjoy affection. If Jax just straight up didn’t like people touching him, then we would make that a permanent rule for Jax, probably even get him a little harness or collar letting people know to give him space.
And if through working on this I could see that he wasn’t responding well, then I would abandon it.
