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Snatch and Run
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Snatch and Run
Hello everyone! Just joined. We adopted this Rottie Mix from our local city shelter on Valentine’s Day weekend. The shelter aged him at 1 yr, but the vet said he was about 18 months. He was at the shelter 9 months, so spent some formative time incarcerated. He’s 40 lbs. So far we’ve had some ups and downs. The worst was probably the jumping on and mouthing on our 5yr old twin humans. A couple of sessions with prong collar correction during that activity (and possibly the wisdom of experience on the twins’ part has stopped this for the most part). The boys finally seem to understand it’s not ok to set themselves up as quarry by shaking toys at him and running🤦. We have lucked out at Buster’s gentleness.
There are a ton of things I could talk about, but one behavior recently that concerns us is the snatching of objects and running away. Having twins 5 yr olds there are toys everywhere and Buster’s favorite pastime has become grabbing a random toy (or shoe, screw driver, sock anything he can get) and taking it into the yard to mouth on or chew up.
Currently we will stop him and take it from his mouth(we are practicing “leave it” so that helps) he is not aggressive with growling or anything and I certainly don’t want to get there. We have a 6 yr old silky terrier and she is highly possessive of food etc that she steals, or sometimes is given. Also if I catch him about to pick something up he shouldn’t I will make a correction sound that I’m making when walking with the prong once a day, but other than that I have no other strategies that we are employing. Any advice on stopping it and/or preventing a resource guarding habit from arising? Thanks!
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2 Replies
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It sounds as if you are doing well as 9 months in the shelter is a long time. Hand feed him meals as much as possible. This builds a bond and respect. Being mouthy is permitted to an extent as Buster is trying to initiate play/show affection. Correcting him confuses him. Get a thick pair of gardening gloves, when you have had enough it is off to the crate. Have something for him to chew on there. With the children redirect him onto something else.
For the jumping you can have the child approach and be standing on the leash with some slack, when he jumps he corrects himself as opposed to you correcting him. You want to be careful about correcting him with the children as you do not want to have him start to associate being uncomfortable when the kids are around. He sees the kids as playmates which is ok under your supervision. The dog must know that he is subordinate to the kids. For instance, if you are sitting on the couch with the children, he lays at your feet not on the couch.
As for snatching, trade a high value treat for what he has. When he drops what he has for the chicken etc remove him. You want to remove Buster from the object not take away the item from him.
My main goal with shelter/rescue dogs is to continually engage and build a respect and trust. I go easy on the corrections unless they do something really stupid.
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Thanks for the reply Gene. I appreciate the advice and will take it to heart. He had a quick bond with my wife because our town animal control officers are all female, I assume that is why.
So I know I really have to work on creating that bond with him . I feel like I’ve made inroads, but definitely don’t want to break it.
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