Dumpling is nippy w/ 7YO DDD

Dumpling is 1.5 years old, fixed and very submissive with other dogs in controlled environments. She has zero food agression and has been very good with the kids until recently. Whenever she is sitting with me on the couch and my daughter sits next to us and tries to pet Dumpling, she nips at her, never connecting with skin, just snappy or nippy. Most of the incidents happen when the dog is sleeping and my duaghter comes oover to pet or adore her, which she lets me do without incident. Most of the time she is happy go lucky with my duaghter. She has never done this behvior with my 10 YO son, hubs or I. We use discouraging words with the dog "no biting" and make the dog get off the couch and tell her to go to her bed.

Is this Dumplings way of inserting her dominance over my daughter? Should I put my duaghter in more authoritative positions with Dumpling like feeding and care?

Any suggestions?

Couldn't hurt to have her feed him, etc. But having her get off the couch was the only other thing I was going to suggest and you are doing it! It may just be the age of your pug, testing boundries, etc.

Let's put all the dominance talk aside as it isn't a particularly useful tool for working with dogs and generally leads to using training techniques that are too harsh, in my experience.

Sounds like this could be a couple of things--not liking to be awakened and/or resource guarding--whether the resource is the sofa or you.

You are doing the first thing I'd do is removing the dog from the sofa when the dog gets snarly. And I'd tell your daughter that if she is going to wake the dog up, to let the dog know she's coming, but speaking to her or calling her name, etc. In case this is a startle response.

I'd go back to some pretty basic training including wanting the dog to ask to come up on the sofa and getting off when requested. And ask some questions of your daughter if this is new behaviour on Dumplings part. Could she have inadvertantly scared the dog or mishandled it and now Dumpling has decided to not turst her? Through no fault of your daughters or without her intending to give a negative message, she may have and Dumpling has interpreted her behaviour negatively.

I'm a big fan of Dr. Sophia Yin's Learn to Earn program. Worth checking out:

http://drsophiayin.com/blog/entry/the-learn-to-earn-program