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Food-Guarding Issues, “Teaching Your Dog To Play Nice”
By doglover | February 1, 2010
If you’ve never seen a dog with serious food-guarding issues, it’s troublesome to appreciate the potential severity of the problem. Food-guarding issues don’t seem to be essentially a mirrored image on the personality or training level of the dog: it’s an instinctive thing, and though dogs with a general aggression drawback are naturally additional at risk of demonstrating the condition, it’s also exhibited by otherwise-sweet, well-behaved, well-adjusted family dogs.
Like an evil djinn, the matter can rear its ugly head solely when food (or the food bowl) is present: a real case of Jekyll and Hyde. A dog with serious food-guarding issues can be a true danger to anyone who should approach her throughout a meal: it’s not a scenario in which you’ll expect to coach your dog to “play nice”. Instinct is what’s compelling her to act in this undesirable, and even dangerous, means – you wish to require steps to flip the behavior around before your relationship with your dog suffers or someone gets hurt.
There are different degrees of food guarding. Within the mildest case, a dog can just tense up a little or freeze if somebody approaches her while she’s attempting to eat. She might even continue eating, but her posture can be rigid and stiff: she’ll clearly be uncomfortable. Signs that the problem is a lot of severe would come with a marked increase in eating speed, an on the spot, arduous stare right at you (usually in the middle of a still, tense, “watching” posture), a lifted lip, a snarl, a snap, and finally a real bite.
NOTE: A dog exhibiting any of those last three symptoms features a pretty severe case of food-guarding aggression, and may be ready to inflict actual harm.
If this is the case together with your dog, hiring a hands-on trainer might be the simplest answer for you: it’ll guarantee your safety, and that they’ll be in a position to look at your overall relationship with your dog and see if there are more areas contributing to the problem.
A food-guarding dog may be a pretty confused one. In her mind, she’s got your role mixed up. She fails to acknowledge that you are the dispenser of food (which should accord you automatic alpha-dog status, making certain your immunity from any kind of aggression or dominance), and instead is viewing you as a threat: a blackguard who would possibly be going to take away her precious food. Hence, the possessiveness. The degree of aggression that a food-guarding dog is capable of may be onerous to understand, till you consider the very fact that food is one in all the greatest pleasures of your dog’s life.
Dogs are scavengers by nature: they’re programmed to eat simply about something they’ll get their jaws around. Likewise because the instinctiveness of this gluttony, most dogs additionally merely enjoy the tactile and gustatory sensations that come with a sensible meal (or an indifferent one .. and sometimes even a dangerous one). They solely … like to eat. And it’s this overwhelming importance that’s placed on food that gets some dogs a touch drawn up: their grasp of matters gets a touch thrown off, and they begin to wonder, miser-like, who may happen upon them and take away their cherished food.
The obvious conclusion: you. Or anyone else who comes along at meal-time. To cure her of this frustrating and antisocial habit, you would like to remind her that you’re really the purveyor of that that she holds thus dear: to create it clear to her that you just’re the one accountable for the kitchen, and of all the pleasant morsels contained therein.
Dogs can develop food-guarding instincts at any point in their lives: some will have had the problem since puppyhood, but for others the tendency lies dormant until it’s woke up by an item of specific juiciness.
For many dogs, the deciding factor is meat, in some form or form – whether it’s a marrowbone, a mutton hock, or forged-off scraps from the dinner table. Meat to dogs is like money to humans: it can amendment them, build them do things they otherwise wouldn’t do. Thus it’s not entirely shocking that the intrinsic worth of meat-related foodstuffs will offer our dogs a new, unpleasantly skewed perspective on the sanctity of the food-bowl. As a result of of the chance of food-guarding turning into a difficulty in your dog’s behavior at any point in her life, prevention is obviously the perfect path to require: whether or not you get your dog from puppyhood or adopt her as an adult from a shelter, you ought to make a purpose of approaching her during mealtime.
Have you ever heard an admirer with dogs raise you to “leave her alone when she’s eating”? This can be a short-term resolution at most: it’ll forestall something untoward from happening, provided that each one the humans play by the principles and ensure that they don’t disturb the dog – however the dog is still the one calling all the shots. And what will happen if the unexpected occurs? What if a toddler charges full-tilt towards the dog and makes a playful grab for her bowl?
In an exceedingly wolf-pack, the alpha dog is rarely disturbed when she is eating. Not only does she get to eat initial, and eat the lion’s share of everything; however she additionally eats undisturbed. This is why a dog that’s permitted to eat in solitary splendor can truly become a lot of food-aggressive, not less; without anyone to require her down a notch, she begins to assume additional authority than she actually has. To forestall your dog from obtaining an overinflated sense of her own importance, create sure you disturb her plenty while she’s eating. Don’t make a purpose of tiptoeing around whenever the food bowl’s out; it’ll just accustom her to solitude and silence when she eats (which are things that only the alpha wolf or dog is entitled to).
At the other finish of the spectrum, don’t create these disturbances a negative experience for her either, or else you may really produce a downside where none previously existed. All you have to try and do is approach her every now and then whereas she eats – starting from the terribly day you bring her into your home – and add something tasty (and tiny!) to her dish whereas she’s eating, to create the association in her head that ‘humans approaching food bowl = good news‘. A spoonful of scrambled egg, a bit of liver treat, some chunks of cheese – something that she’ll get pleasure from, and that features a bigger “food price” than the kibble she’s eating, can work perfectly.
After all, if it’s too late for preventatives and your dog already includes a drawback, you’ll would like to adopt a terribly completely different approach. Here’s what to try to to: – The dog bowl goes to be put away for the subsequent seven to 10 days. Over this point, you’re visiting be feeding your dog by hand – one tiny handful at a time. Yes, I grasp this is going to be time-consuming, however the choice is even worse: a dangerous dog that can’t be trusted around food. So feed her by hand for the next week or so. Be sure not to encourage any greedy snapping or grabbing for the food: only enable her to take the food from your hand when she will so gently. Remind her that bite inhibition is critical to get what she wants!
Once a minimum of every week has passed and she’s eating politely from your hand, you’ll be able to reintroduce the food bowl, with one slight modification: it’s to be empty. And it stays empty until you pass by and drop a little handful of kibble into it for her to eat. When that’s been polished off, wait at least a full minute before adding another, tiny, handful of kibble.
Keep doing this till the whole meal’s been consumed – this is a terribly effective method of teaching your dog to actively long for your presence near her food bowl!
When she’s graduated to the next stage, you can start setting down a half-empty food bowl for her. Don’t let her lunge at the bowl and begin gobbling: holding the bowl out of reach (or inserting it on a handy counter), create her sit and wait before you permit her to eat. Don’t place the bowl down till she complies. Sit or crouch beside the bowl and continue to feature small handfuls of kibble, just as you did in step 2, till a full meal’s been eaten.
The fourth, and final, step is to permit her access to a full food bowl. Again, it’s very necessary that you are doing not enable her to decision the shots: she must sit and wait till you release her with an “OK!” before she’s permitted to eat. To stay the message clear in your head that you’re in control of the food in this house, follow calling her away from her food some times per week and rewarding her with a super-tasty treat for her exemplary obedience whereas she’s making an attempt to eat.
If at any time your dog’s behavior gets shaky on any of those four steps, backslide until you’ve reached the stage at that she is one hundred% reliable. Wait at this stage for a minimum of two or three a lot of days before trying to progress once more. As with any coaching, it’s essential that a solid foundation is constructed before moving on to the next level – she must be fully comfortable with every step before attempting a brand new one.
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