Tell me about fixing resource guarding

[Anonymous]

We are signed up for a training class specific to guarding, but I'm curious to hear from others who had to fix resource guarding behavior in their dog. How was fixing it? Any tips? Dog is a year old and the guarding behavior is new.

[Anonymous]

With our dog we distract him with a high value treat and while he is eating the treat, we praise him and take the item he is guarding. Do not give your dog a treat after he has already started guarding as you do not want him to associate getting a treat with growling or snapping at you. You basically want to completely stop the behavior while turning it into a good experience. He will eventually realize it's okay if you come near his coveted item because he gets something good in return. This will lead to him no longer feeling the need to guard it down the line. We now give our dog a treat maybe half the time. The last thing you want to do is escalate the situation by scolding or yelling. This will stress your dog out more and most likely just make it worse. Always go the way of least resistance.

[Anonymous]

Ah, yes the difficult teen years. Or young adult years.

The very few times this happened with my 45lbs dog, I loudly said NO, and pushed him away from his food, asserting my ascendancy over his bowl. I felt I could do that safely, since I've had this dog since he was a young pup, and he knows I'm the boss. He was just trying something, and stopped doing it.
After that, I hand-fed him a few times, and experimented with taking away his bowl in the middle of feeding, plunging my hand in the bowl and taking out kibble, etc. And then I did this with toys, although he hadn't yet progressed to guarding toys. But just to be thorough.

This may be dangerous to do if your dog has progressed to more aggressive guarding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With our dog we distract him with a high value treat and while he is eating the treat, we praise him and take the item he is guarding. Do not give your dog a treat after he has already started guarding as you do not want him to associate getting a treat with growling or snapping at you. You basically want to completely stop the behavior while turning it into a good experience. He will eventually realize it's okay if you come near his coveted item because he gets something good in return. This will lead to him no longer feeling the need to guard it down the line. We now give our dog a treat maybe half the time. The last thing you want to do is escalate the situation by scolding or yelling. This will stress your dog out more and most likely just make it worse. Always go the way of least resistance.

Also, look into Zak George videos on Youtube. He only believes in positive reinforcement dog training. I was going to take our dog to a trainer, but then I found his videos and we have made so much progress.

Here is one on resource guarding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ah, yes the difficult teen years. Or young adult years.

The very few times this happened with my 45lbs dog, I loudly said NO, and pushed him away from his food, asserting my ascendancy over his bowl. I felt I could do that safely, since I've had this dog since he was a young pup, and he knows I'm the boss. He was just trying something, and stopped doing it.
After that, I hand-fed him a few times, and experimented with taking away his bowl in the middle of feeding, plunging my hand in the bowl and taking out kibble, etc. And then I did this with toys, although he hadn't yet progressed to guarding toys. But just to be thorough.

This may be dangerous to do if your dog has progressed to more aggressive guarding.

Do not do this! If you do not get severely bitten, it is only teaching your dog that he can't get away with resource guarding with you the alpha. What about when a kid goes near him while eating? You want to teach them to no longer do the behavior for anyone at anytime. Positive reinforcement training rather than dominating gives much more consistent long term results while maintaining your dog's trust and respect in you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah, yes the difficult teen years. Or young adult years.

The very few times this happened with my 45lbs dog, I loudly said NO, and pushed him away from his food, asserting my ascendancy over his bowl. I felt I could do that safely, since I've had this dog since he was a young pup, and he knows I'm the boss. He was just trying something, and stopped doing it.
After that, I hand-fed him a few times, and experimented with taking away his bowl in the middle of feeding, plunging my hand in the bowl and taking out kibble, etc. And then I did this with toys, although he hadn't yet progressed to guarding toys. But just to be thorough.

This may be dangerous to do if your dog has progressed to more aggressive guarding.

Do not do this! If you do not get severely bitten, it is only teaching your dog that he can't get away with resource guarding with you the alpha. What about when a kid goes near him while eating? You want to teach them to no longer do the behavior for anyone at anytime. Positive reinforcement training rather than dominating gives much more consistent long term results while maintaining your dog's trust and respect in you.

Yeah definitely do not do this

+1 to finding a positive reinforcement trainer

also, just, be careful! dogs are telling you when they feel stressed or anxious. don't push them. try to lower the temperature but don't punish the dog or push them to their limits. you don't want to escalate.

[Anonymous]

For those who have been through it, were you able to get it completely turned around? And, yes, I know not to mess with the dog's food!

[Anonymous]

Depending on the age and severity, you can probably get this fixed for good. My resource guarded was older and fairly severe, so I will never trust him around food. But even he has made significant progress.

Get this book. It will help you.
https://www.amazon.com/Mine-Practical-Guide-Resource-Guarding/dp/0970562942/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah, yes the difficult teen years. Or young adult years.

The very few times this happened with my 45lbs dog, I loudly said NO, and pushed him away from his food, asserting my ascendancy over his bowl. I felt I could do that safely, since I've had this dog since he was a young pup, and he knows I'm the boss. He was just trying something, and stopped doing it.
After that, I hand-fed him a few times, and experimented with taking away his bowl in the middle of feeding, plunging my hand in the bowl and taking out kibble, etc. And then I did this with toys, although he hadn't yet progressed to guarding toys. But just to be thorough.

This may be dangerous to do if your dog has progressed to more aggressive guarding.

Do not do this! If you do not get severely bitten, it is only teaching your dog that he can't get away with resource guarding with you the alpha. What about when a kid goes near him while eating? You want to teach them to no longer do the behavior for anyone at anytime. Positive reinforcement training rather than dominating gives much more consistent long term results while maintaining your dog's trust and respect in you.

Don’t be ridiculous. I taught my kids do this too. You’ve got to know your dog, that’s all.

Positive training works until it doesn’t. Don’t fall for the “positive only” school of thought, because it takes a lot longer to work, and doesn’t work for a lot of dogs. ***Mostly, it creates a lot of jobs for trainers***, because of the aforementioned time commitment and the fact that by the time people hire trainers, their dogs need a ton of positive training!

Dogs are simple: they understand carrot and stick. If the figurative carrot won’t work, try the figurative stick.

Please never think that humans are NOT the boss of the dog. You will confuse your dog and make things worse. Dogs are not children and should not be treated the same as Snowflake Larlo.

[Anonymous]

You need to trade for higher value object.

[Anonymous]

I hope no one takes the above advice seriously. Try it with the wrong dog, and you’ll have a potentially serious dog bite. One of the reasons positive training is recommended is because it works, by changing the dog’s association of ‘Human approaches, food goes away, must guard food’ to ‘Himan approaches, even better food appears, no need to guard this’. The other reason it’s recommended is because the potential for someone getting hurt, is extremely low.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With our dog we distract him with a high value treat and while he is eating the treat, we praise him and take the item he is guarding. Do not give your dog a treat after he has already started guarding as you do not want him to associate getting a treat with growling or snapping at you. You basically want to completely stop the behavior while turning it into a good experience. He will eventually realize it's okay if you come near his coveted item because he gets something good in return. This will lead to him no longer feeling the need to guard it down the line. We now give our dog a treat maybe half the time. The last thing you want to do is escalate the situation by scolding or yelling. This will stress your dog out more and most likely just make it worse. Always go the way of least resistance.

I agree with this!! Also, give the toy (or whatever he’s guarding) back to your dog so he learns you do t take it forever