My husband and I adopted a 35lb 1 year old spayed mystery mix (maybe hound) about a month ago. She has mild anxiety that was being treated medically at the rescue, and we've continued the meds. We've been living by the 3-3-3 rule of rescues, and we're starting to see some new behaviors now that she's feeling more settled in past the 3 week mark. We know this is to be expected, but I'm curious about whether what we're seeing has something to do with how she views the pack dynamic of our home, or if this is just a behavioral issue we need to nip in the bud.
I spent the first week on PTO, focused on her and working to get her comfortable in our home. Lots of walks, play, basic training (sit/down), just hanging out quietly. My husband works a hybrid schedule and was home on an off, and put in plenty of time playing with her, taking her on walks, and has also been running with her – something she loves that I am not interested in doing. She has pretty significant crate aversion to the point of self harm, so we took turns sleeping downstairs with her until she was able to sleep through the night on her own on the couch. We have 2 cats she's overly interested in that we're slowly introducing, which is why she can't sleep upstairs with us just yet.
Her reactions to seeing my husband are always more boisterous than to me – helicopter tail wags, she wants to jump up on him, sniff and lick his face, leap into his arms, etc. When she walks with him, she pulls harder and is much more vocal when she sees squirrels. However, I am the one that she struggles to be separated from. When I go upstairs past the baby gate, she usually sits and waits for me, and will occasionally attempt to climb the gate to get to me. If I leave the house, she doesn't panic and will just do her normal things with my husband. She will follow me around, but doesn't need to be next to me at all times, and is generally less adamant about being in my space/demanding pets/attention than she is with him.
In the past week she's started barking at my husband. Tail up with a little wag, head high, ears perked, no hackles raised, no growling – just finding him (usually in his office) and barking. If he crouches down and calls her to him, she wants to rub against him with big tail wags and paw at his hands, etc. Generally I would categorize this as playful/attention-seeking behavior, but she doesn't always want to play with a toy in response. She's done this both when I'm present and when I'm not, so it doesn't appear to be in relation to me. When this happens inside, if he tries to follow her when she barks, she usually leads him to the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs (regardless of whether I'm upstairs or not). I've been taking her on a leashed trip up the stairs and around the second floor (excluding the dog-free cat room) about once a day, and she sniffs around and is very willing to come back downstairs after.
We both feed her, we both take her on walks, we both go out with her to potty (and she goes for both of us). The major differences in how we interact are that I do clicker training, and he goes on runs.
We're puzzled about why he's being singled out for this behavior, and curious about whether it's some kind of pack dynamic she's worked out: it's not ok to bark at/jump on mom, but it's ok to bark at/jump on dad? We've been working on "off" or having him turn away/ignore her when she jumps up, but it's a much more frequent issue for him than for me.
Has anyone experiences something similar to this? It really doesn't feel like aggression/guarding behavior, but it's a recent change and we're trying to think of how to fix this before it becomes a more regular occurrence!