Bulldogs World

Hello! Oh my god, it's been AGES since I was here. So much has changed! I don't know how many of you remember me and Beatrix, but here's a quick update on us. I quit my day job a bit over two years ago to commit full time to my own business -- which is a big part of why I haven't been here.  I don't have time anymore! I used to come here when I needed a break from my boss/office work/stress, and now it's all different, you know? 

Beatrix is six years old now, and she's amazing.  She still loves her cat Pippen to pieces. The other three cats still live in various stages of ignoring her.  Here's a picture of her from recently, so you can all see how adorable she still is. :) (Okay. I'm probably biased, but she IS pretty darn cute.)

Anyway, the reason I'm seeking you all out again after all this time is that I actually have an issue. Within the last year or so, Beatrix has started some odd behavior.  She and I tend to sleep in later than Mike does -- he's always been more of a morning person than I am.  So he gets up, shuts the door between the bedroom and living room, watches the news, has some coffee, and then comes back in later in one of two circumstances.

Some days, he comes in to say goodbye before leaving for work. (He works a stupid early shift right now, and leaves around 4:30 in the morning.)  When he does this, all is well. Beatrix continues to cuddle me, he kisses me goodbye, I tell him to drive safe, and he's on his way.

His days off, he comes in arond 6:30 to wake me up for the day.  The MINUTE he opens the door on these days, Beatrix starts a low in her throat growl.  I don't know how she knows that he's waking me up, rather than saying goodbye (we have room-darkening curtains, so it's the same kind of dark no matter the hour), but she does. When he comes to the side of the bed, she goes and sits at the foot of it, all stiff and growling and staring off into the living room. We ignore her (trying not to reward the behavior with attention) but the growling just gets louder. Once or twice, she's even spun around and nipped his toe as he's been sitting on the bed.

Yesterday, I was lying on the sofa and she was cuddling me in the middle of the day.  Mike came into the living room -- and the same growling started! This is the first time she's EVER done it not in the bed.

And it's clear she loves Mike. Like, when it's not these very particular circumstances, she snuggles him, she plays with him, she snorfles his face and climbs all over him. She's excited to see him when he comes home.

The nearest I can figure is that she is actually resource guarding me in these circumstances. She perceives Mike as coming in to take me away from her, and starts a resource guarding behavior.  The trouble is that althought I've (I think) identified the problem, I can't figure out how to fix it. Google has failed me, and I can find very little information about how to train this out of her. Most of the articles address resource guarding of food or toys, adn the solutions don't quite apply.  The best I can get is: give her something she likes more (but giving her a treat while she's growling feels like rewarding her for the behavior, which obviously I don't want to do); Take away the thing she's guarding (ie get out of bed right then and both of us walk away from her); And that's about it. It doesn't feel very helpful, and I really need to fix this. Mike was so upset yesterday afternoon (after the couch incident) because he felt emotionally hurt by her. He loves her to death, so to have her growl at him when he comes near just hurts his heart, you know?

Anyway. You all are the best bulldog people I know, so when I needed a place to turn, even after two or three years, you were the first ones I thought of. Anybody have any experience with something like this, or advice on how to handle it?