Originally Posted By: garydHELP! I am new, I have a 5 month old beagle, and she is lovely, there is just one problem, when she settles on your lap or the childrens lap and you try and remove her she gets very aggresive and growls and snarls and tries to bite. She has also done this this evening when i have tried to dry her from coming in from outside in the rain.
Although a proper diagnosis of the problem can never be given via the net, I would suggest this is likely to be symptomatic of a lack of leadership from your behalf.
What sort of training are you doing with her? This kind of behaviour is often the dog testing you and testing her boundaries. She is telling you to back off when she doesn't want to be moved.
Firstly I would stop her sitting on the children's laps completely. Do not let the kids play with her unsupervised - this kind of behaviour can definitely escalate if the dog thinks it is gaining success. You have to be very careful when it comes to correcting her - I would actually be inclined to say do not yell at her or 'confront' her when she exhibits this behaviour, because she could take you up on the challenge. She has already warned you, and there is no telling how badly the behaviour will escalate if you challenge her directly.
I had a similar issue when Daisy was around the same age - she would growl and snap if I tried to remove her from the couch. I noticed the behavior got worse if I grabbed her to remove her or yelled NO because she saw it as me challenging her. Instead, I used a treat to teach her the 'off' command. When I saw her on the lounge, I'd tell her to off and give her lots of treats and praise as soon as she complied. This meant I avoided confrontation but the training helped enforced my position as alpha (as she learnt to comply to my command).
I also started crate training her so she had her own place to go to, when I wanted her off the lounge I was able to give her an alternative place to sit by saying in your crate.
I would also look at implementing the NILIF principle (nothing in life is free) and also a program like the triangle of temptation. both can be found here:
http://www.k9force.net/index.html?row2col2=nilif.html
http://www.k9force.net/index.html?row2col2=tot.html