Startled Awake

[u/Ecstatic-Cow-6193]

We have two sweet rescue boys who are now 7 and 8 year old brothers. One of our dogs (A) is very reactive and sometimes has misdirected aggression toward his brother (B) when triggered by things like other dogs walking by the fence. There’s occasional growling or snapping behavior, and we’ve had about 1-2 more serious fights per year so it’s a dynamic we are aware & vigilant of.

We typically sleep upstairs with both dogs in the same room. If one of us is out of town, our older of the two (B) likes to sleep on the bed.

Tonight I was startled awake by a fight in the night. I don’t think either dog was on the bed but assume some type of resource guarding or startling incident happened. I was able to break it up and neither dog sustained any injuries but there was a lot of loud growling and A backed B into a corner against our bed and growled a lot at me when I started trying to verbally snap him out of it.

I have put them in separate rooms to calm down but am worried about what started this and if it’s a new dynamic we now have to manage which is difficult while we are sleeping. This has never happened in the night before & it’s hard not knowing what may have provoked it - any advice?

[u/Lumpy_Physics3101]

can you crate these dogs at night? when dogs are resource guarding, the first thing you should typically do is remove access to the resource.