Puppies
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Resource Protection
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Resource Protection
Hello everybody 🙂
We have a 15 weeks old belgian sheperd puppy (male) (tervueren= malinois with a bit more fur) and he is super smart and sweet. We teach him to become a well mannered dog in and out of the house (no attention seeking, patient, no barking at visitors, at children, other dogs etc).. he is really food motivated, what make training easy but comes with one downside: he is food protective.
more detailed: he doesn`t have a problem with hand feeding, even taking away bowl, etc, as long as you stay with him the whole feeding process.. but if you leave and wanna go back, evtl take a food then he growls, snapped once when we went closer..
we tried to desensitise him, taking food way, giving sthg better, giving it back, petting while eating, also corrected firmly when he would growl to intense..
What do you suggest? do you have the same problem, how do you deal with it?
Thank for your advice, we appreciate it 🙂
Nomad, B and A
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6 Replies
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I’d lean into what Robert has said about the subject in a few videos. Although I do think this would make a good member lesson so I’ll add it to the list of suggestions and try to push it up near the top. If the videos below don’t answer the question the way you were hoping, then I’d recommend submitting a AskMeAnything located at the bottom of the members page. You’ll have to condense the question as there is a character limit on the form.
If you submit it early enough today you’ll have the in time for the next video do this evening or tomorrow.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=XS70MDvmYtA
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Thanks a lot Alin, will do 🙂
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this happened to me once when my mal was around 3 months old. i was feeding him, didn’t leave his side, when i noticed some food was on the floor, i tried to pick it up and put it in his bowl. he growled. i grabbed his scruff and firmly said NO! he stopped. so i praised him and let him continue eating. i slowly reached inside his bowl again to test him, he was okay after that.
i don’t know if what i did is correct or not but it did the work for my mal’s situation at that particular time.-
thanks a lot oldSAP, we do the same, it is getting better 🙂
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Hi Nomad – that happened early on with my GSD. In general I think it is best to leave the dog alone while eating. In a pack situation, the pack leader does not go back to the kill to eat from lower ranking dog’s allocated food. In human world, resource guarding can be a problem as you experienced. Snapping at you is never an option. As you can’t snap back – I would defer to oldSAP-Charlie’s response, if that occurs, in most situations. My feeding routine is…. humans eat first, no exceptions over the last 5.5 years – dog goes to his place and patiently waits. At first I told him to go to his place, now it is automatic – as soon as we sit down, he goes to his place. When I grab his bowl – the feeding routine (whatever it is) begins. Having a routine for feeding, more than plunking down a bowl of food, makes it an event. We all know the rules, and we all follow them. It has worked well for us.
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Thanks Bill, that`s good advice.
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