Kingdom of Pets

Posted by Bella-Alp
Nov 5, 2011

Our 18mth old maltese cross has always had resource guarding issues. It is not while she is eating her food from her bowl, but when she has a bone or pig's ear etc. She becomes very aggressive and has bitten our child. Once it has happened, she is very remorseful and we ignore her. She has become a great dog in every other way except with food that she values. She used to be like this when woken from her sleep but we have trained that out of her.
I don't know what to do next. We have just avoided giving her food that she doesn't eat immediately.

Posted by MaxHollyNoah
Nov 7, 2011

Hi Bella Alp,

I wrote my suggestions to correct "resource guarding aggression" at another posting titled "Lab Puppy Aggression Issue" but your case is just for rawhide, pig ears, etc. not for regular foods.

I think your decision of not to giving her those treats is right. She should not have high-valued foods (by her standard, not ours) until she learns to give (drop) them back to you.

To teach her to drop something like rawhide is by repetition. Start with a little larger rawhide bone and give it to her. Count 10 and tell her to drop it by offering a treat that she likes. She will drop the bone in order to eat the treat. Praise her "Good girl" and give her back the bone. Repeat this several times every day. At the end of the session, hide the rawhide until the next session; never let her keep it. Pig ears are more challenging since she can start eating it rather quickly. You can move on to more valuable stuff once she masters to drop the rawhide bone.

Dogs don't like to let a rawhide taken especially when it becomes so small and chewy that they can put the whole thing in their mouth so make sure you will replace your rawhide before it gets like that.

Good luck and let us know how it goes. I am sure you can train her "drop" since you have trained her not to be grumpy when she gets waken up

Posted by Bella-Alp
Nov 7, 2011

Thanks so much. That is great advice. I'll be trying that tomorrow morning! I'll let you know how she progresses.

Posted by KOPCaroline
Nov 7, 2011

Hey Bella,

I cant add much to MHN's awesome advice except this - if you find even the rawhides are a battle, even when you have treats to exchange, just back up another step. Use toys or stuffed animals, when she has them in her mouth, do the training with the treat exchange. Its just teaching the basic "give" or "drop it", but removing something more worth guarding in your dogs opinion. Once she's got a handle on the command, you can re-try rawhides and hopefully it will go better. Good luck!

Posted by Bella-Alp
Nov 19, 2011

Bella is quite happily giving me her pig's ear! I took your advice and gradually lengthened the time I would let her have the high value food. Each time, I'd ask her to give and replace it with a treat. Fabulous! I left her with a bone while we were at work all day and when we returned home, she happily let me take it from her! Yey! So happy now and so is Bella.

Posted by MaxHollyNoah
Nov 19, 2011

Hi Bella Alp,

I am so glad that it worked!

Now go one step ahead and introduce a command "Drop it" as you still exchange with a treat and eventually make her drop the object without offering a treat. You can still reward her with a treat every now and then.

Again, go slowly as you see how she would respond to the command.

Good luck

Resource Guarding