Managing Dog Food Aggression And Resource Guarding

A Belgian Malinois guarding his food bowl(out of sight) and warning everyone to stay away. This dog needs to learn a submissive role.

Dog food aggression and resource guarding is a dangerous dog with bared teeth, standing stiff and snarling while staring you in the eye. It’s quite a sight and it’s best to back off real fast. The dog is serious, dead serious. No one is going to get near his food. It’s also called food aggression or “resource guarding.

It’s really difficult to appreciate the potential severity of the problem unless you witness it yourself. Resource guarding issues are not necessarily a reflection on the personality or training level of the dog. It’s an instinctive thing.

Dogs with a general aggression problem are naturally more prone to demonstrating the dog food aggression condition. It is also exhibited by otherwise sweet, well-behaved, well-adjusted family dogs. It can be a case of Jekyll and Hyde.

A dog with serious food aggression issues can be a real danger to anyone who might approach during a meal.

Many ASPCA’s and other kennels test incoming dogs and if they find serious food bowl aggression, it is an automatic euthanasia for the dog. You can’t just teach the dog to “play nice.”

Instinct is what is forcing her to act this way. You have to take steps to reverse this behavior before your relationship with the dog deteriorates.

Someone is going to get badly hurt if you don’t. Dog kennels don’t always have the time to spend re-training dogs with this issue. Dog food aggression attitude-dogs are capable of taking a hand off and will do it to protect their food, the most precious thing they have, or so they believe. Kennels are forced to euthanize.

There are three different degrees of dog food aggression:

NOTE A dog showing any of the last three: snarl, snap, bite… has a pretty severe case of food aggression and may be prepared to inflict actual harm!

If this is the case with your dog, hiring a hands-on trainer may be your best option to ensure your safety. The trainer will also be able to examine your overall relationship with you and your dog. He can see if there are other areas contributing to the dog food aggression and resource guarding.

They fail to recognize that you are the dispenser of food and instead are seeing you as a threat who might be trying to take the food away.

Dogs can develop food-guarding instincts at any point in their lives. Some will have the problem from puppyhood. For others, the tendency lies dormant and is awakened by something simple like a piece of real MEAT, possibly a scrap from the table or a marrow bone or who knows?

Meat is to dogs what money is to humans. It makes them do horrible things and this is why we have dog food aggression problems It goes on in the wild all the time.

Before a solution, a word of PREVENTION. Because food-guarding can erupt at any time in a dogs life, prevention is the best plan.

This should help him from getting an overinflated sense of importance of himself along with the realization that no one cares about his dinner. This will help considerably with dog food aggression and resource guarding in general.

If it’s too late for prevention and your dog already has a resource guarding problem, you’ll need to adopt a very different approach.

Here’s one way:

STOPPING FOOD BOWL AGGRESSION

What you have done here is demonstrate to your dog that YOU are the one from which he gets his treasured food, and YOU control WHEN he can have it. No dog food aggression should remain.

I suggest you let others in the family participate in this, doing the same thing, so the dog knows all of you are his masters, not just you alone.

To keep the message clear, call him away from his food a few times each week and reward him with a super-tasty treat for his great obedience! Try some freeze-dried liver bits.

He’ll begin to seem like a different dog!

If at any time your dog’s behavior gets shaky on any of these steps, backslide until you reach the stage at which he is 100% reliable. Wait at this stage at least two or three more days before attempting to progress any more.

As with any dog training, it’s essential that a solid foundation be built before moving on to the next level. Dogs must be completely comfortable with each step before trying a new one.

The problem with dog food aggression is that it is part of resource guarding. This means if you try to take a chew toy or any other toy from him, he’s likely to act the same as he did before with the dog food aggression and bite someone, maybe a child. I would work hard on this situation and cure your dog of it immediately!
Happy Jack Russell – “I’m cured! No more aggression!”

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