Defending stolen food and toileting indoors

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AMC
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2015 2:54 pm

Defending stolen food and toileting indoors

Post by AMC »

Hi. We've had a 1.5 year old jack Russell cross for about 5 months. He is generally vey good natured (gets on with other dogs, has OK recall, is good around children). However, we have found that when he steals food (clearly we try eliminate opportunities but mistakes do happen) he growls/ snaps the air to keep us away. He has also on a couple o occasion s done this with bones/ chews and twice when he was got outside and was intent on exploring our neighbours front garden and clearly didn't want to get back in. He is fine around his meals however, and I can stroke him and move his bowl whilst eating and he's relaxes about this. The other isssue (unsure if its related) is that he still has 'accident s' in the house (both poo and wee). We don't think this is just a housetraining issue as he seems to 'go off to do it, usually in the same places) despite having access to outdoors or recently having been taken outdoors. Weve been advised in the past to teach him to wait for things so we've taught him to wait for his food and he's not allowed on things like the sofa;:we try to restrict his access to upstairs (one of the places he goes to toilet);but its quite hard to do as we have 3 kids (who aren't the best at closing doors) and i cant get a stair gate to fit the stairs. Anyway, the real issue is be growling as I'm worried it will escalate and have no real idea how to manage it (note because its mainly around stolen food its hard to predict!). I mention the house training as it night be related to same root cause. Advice very gratefuly received! Thanks
JudyN
Posts: 7018
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2011 1:20 pm
Location: Dorset, UK
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Re: Defending stolen food and toileting indoors

Post by JudyN »

Hi, and welcome :D

For starters, have a read on this article on resource guarding: https://positively.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=18074 With some dogs the best rule is that if he gets to steal the food, he gets to keep it, but you may be able to train him to swap it for something else. How old are your children?

It is unlikely to be linked to the toilet training, but hopefully someone more experienced will be able to address that.
Jasper, lurcher, born December 2009
Shalista
Posts: 1363
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 10:04 pm

Re: Defending stolen food and toileting indoors

Post by Shalista »

Bax has never snapped at me but he has jaws of steel and runs away when i come close and he has something. Or at least he did. We worked on the trading and he now steals things (usually paper cups from the bathroom garbage) to bring to me for a treat. I'm usually in a hurry and (embarrassingly) rarely have treats i can grab so i usually just swipe my finger through the butter dish for a quick (very unhealthy) treat in trade. No more running away, no more jaws of steel :D
Baxter (AKA Bax, Chuckles, Chuckster) Rat Terrier, born 01/16/13
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