Worst. Week. Ever.

[Calin]

Ugh. These past 3 days I've had a tough time with my 13 week old pup. First the rocks and then this. I've had her for a little over a month with no real problems. Now, I'm getting hit with 2 problems that I'm unsure about handling properly in the span of 3 days. What a freaking week.

Anyway, Maddie has never had a problem with food guarding. I fed her out of my hands. I'll give her a pat when she's chewing on a bone. And sometimes, she actually wants me to hold bones for her while she's chewing them. I've always given her treats and praise when she allows me near her food and I was counting my blessings that she was so easy going about it.

I do make her perform a couple of commands before giving her meals, bones, or toys. I make her wait for her dinner. But she is a 13 week old pup, so I only make her work within her limitations.

Anyway, tonight I got her a pig ear for the first time. She was absolutely LOVING the pig ear. I walked up and patted her head while she was chewing it and then I remarked to my husband that I was glad she hasn't shown any food guarding at all.

So then my Husband got the bright idea of actually snatching Maddie's pig ear right out of her mouth. This is the first time someone has ever actually TAKEN a bone from Maddie and she did not respond well at all. She started growling, showing teeth, and barking at my husband. Let's just say she was very upset.

I was as well. I mean, just because your dog doesn't food guard doesn't mean you should just go up to her and snatch things out of her mouth, right? I mean, isn't that being kind of a bully? I am actually still very upset with my husband for doing this to her because I feel like it undid a lot of the work I did making sure Maddie trusts humans with her food.

Anyway, I told my Husband to give Maddie a command and then give her back her pig ear. She promptly performed a 'sit' when he told her and he gave her the ear. But, she just kept on growling even after she got her ear back. I went over to sit next to her and put my hand on her head and she turned around, growling at me, and snapped at me!

I feel like I handled the situation all wrong.

After that, I decided to bust out the string cheese. I sat next to her with the cheese and dropped it by her pig ear giving her 'extra treats' when she quit growling. I made my husband give her a few pieces of treats as she chewed her pig ear. I put my hand close to her pig ear and then squirted some easy cheese on it to sort of show her that I wasn't going to take it, I was only going to enhance it a little. Every few seconds, I would ask her to stop chewing and give me a 'sit' or a 'down.' She did without complaint. A couple of squirts of easy cheese and 2 pieces of string cheese later, Maddie seemed 'OK' with us being near her as she chewed her pig ear. She was obviously not as comfortable as before 'the incident,' but at least she wasn't growling and snapping anymore.

Was this the right way to go about it with a 13 week old pup? Or did I just give her a bunch of great rewards for growling and snapping at us? What could I do or what should I be doing to make sure something like this never happens again?

Believe me, I already got on my husband's case about snatching her food away from her like that!

Please, critique me here! I really want to fix this and respond correctly next time. I don't want to be taken off guard with my pup ever again.

Ugh, what a terrible week. ::

[Ocelot0411]

Oh how rotten. Poor you.

Don't be so hard on yourself though as you did what you thought best at the time having to deal with a situation that you have not dealt with before. I am sure Emmabeth will equip you to deal with the food agression should it re-occur.

Naughty husband though , I would have growled at him too if he took a bar of chocolate off me! Actually I would have bit him hard !!

Seriously though, I understand how frustrating it is when someone (even your husband) does something 'silly' with your dog. I am living this nightmare at the moment too, so you have my utmost sympathy. Although I am sure he didn't mean any harm, I think the only way to get it through to some people (I will not say men, as I am not going to make a controversial or sexist comment ), is to explain to them that when you are not both singing from the same hymn sheet, it is ultimately Maddie who suffers as she is being given conflicting messages about what is / isn't acceptable. The net result of this being that she may be shouted at by one person for something which the other person was allowing her to do without challenge only a few moments ago.

That said, I will be putting this theory into practice myself this evening, so i will let you know how it goes! Chin up though, I am sure there will not be too much damage done and that Maddie will learn to trust you (both) with her food again.

[emmabeth]

AHHHHHH........

Beat husband over head with rolled up newspaper.... or better still, next time hes eating something (preferably something you eat with your hands, forks are a dangerous weapon), swipe it off him as its about to reach his mouth, and then sweetly say 'oh but its ok, im going to give it back'.....

Then tell him that Maddie felt the same as he felt, shock and anger and 'THATS MINE!' but she only has growls and teeth, he has language.

As for Maddie, you are doing the right thing, sit with her and have three pigs ears and swap them round, if she will let you hold one end, squirt cheese on that end whilst she chews the other end.

Basically, anything that means people by food = good.

[Calin]

AHHHHHH........

Beat husband over head with rolled up newspaper.... or better still, next time hes eating something (preferably something you eat with your hands, forks are a dangerous weapon), swipe it off him as its about to reach his mouth, and then sweetly say 'oh but its ok, im going to give it back'.....

Oh, I know!

I told him, "How would you feel if you were just sitting there, holding a big stack of your money and someone just came right up to you and snatched it out of your hands? You'd probably want to get up and beat the crap out of them, right? What if this happened to you EVERY time you had money in your hands? You'd probably start getting pretty darn irritable anytime someone approached you while you were holding it, right?"

Seriously, I could have killed him!

[Calin]

Oh man. We had a really bad relapse today.

We were in puppy class today and someone brought in a tiny little squeak toy. (It was one of those with real fur) Anyway, Maddie got a hold of it and LOST HER FREAKING MIND growling if anyone so much as looked in her direction while she was holding it.

I immediately whipped out the treats and asked her to 'Drop it' in a firm voice. No dice. So I got a better treat and asked again. She growled more. Finally, I got the best treat I had in my bag and I brought it close to her nose so she could see I had something really tasty to trade her for that squeak toy. It was at this point, she bite me. It was a real bite, too. She actually broke skin.

The trainer and the rest of the class just stared at us, shocked. Maddie has always been the 'star pupil' of the class and everyone was surprised to see her act that way. Finally, the trainer came over and we just kept dropping milk bones around her. She went to pick one up and dropped the toy. Very stealthy-like, I got the toy away from her and hid it behind my back. The trainer grabbed the toy from behind my back and hid it in the toy bag.

The very second Maddie finished her milk bone, she got all nutty. She started searching for the squeaky toy behind my back and even started pawing in the drawer with the toy bag. After a few minutes of frantic searching, she eventually calmed down.

But I'm still upset.

What am I doing wrong?

[emmabeth]

I cant see anything you are doing wrong....

Id hazard a guess that she isnt entirely sure on the 'drop it' command... so practice that more with low value stuff for really high value treats.

She bit you because you pushed the issue, she didnt know you were trying to show her how good the treat was, from her perspective she said 'this is MINE' and you said 'taking it' and she said 'no!' and you approached it anyway..... so she felt she had to bite.

If you get that again, drop the treats around her as you did, instead of confronting her.

Real fur toys are REALLY high value for some dogs and Maddie seems to be one. You can either attempt to never let her see one again, which I personally think is a shame...... or you can flood her with them, have LOADS of them, she cant hoarde them all!

If she loves them that much they could be the toy she works for, her special thing.

Em

[Calin]

Real fur toys are REALLY high value for some dogs and Maddie seems to be one. You can either attempt to never let her see one again, which I personally think is a shame...... or you can flood her with them, have LOADS of them, she cant hoarde them all!

Oh my. I went right out after reading this and bought some real fur toys to give to Maddie and she couldn't care less about them. She only half heartedly picked one up. It's the same thing with the pig ears. Now when I give her one I can take it from her if I want and she doesn't seem the least bit bothered. So why was she so focused on THAT particular toy and THAT particular pig ear? I don't get it.

With the 'drop it' command, I can get her drop things all the time....but mostly because she doesn't really want them that bad. It's so hard to find something she wants badly on a consistent basis to practice getting her to drop higher value things.

What bothers me most about this whole thing is there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to why she guarded those things. She doesn't guard anything else. (Yet) It's pretty hard to solve a problem if you can't anticipate it, darn it! She's just been so...so...random!

Emmabeth, be honest with me. How worried should I be about this?

[Ocelot0411]

Hi Calin

Just wondered how you and Maddie are getting on? Hope things are better.

[Mattie]

Whenever I say, "Look what I have got", my dogs know that they are getting extra special treats and no matter what they are doing or what they have, they come running I find this very useful for getting things off them that I don't want them to have and when I first got my Greyhound he did food guard and I was threatened several times because I was walking past him. Now I can take anything off him including juicy bones.

[Josie]

Coming to this a bit late, you're probably a lot further on now.

Toys will have been a lot higher value at puppy class because there is so much more competition for them, at home I don't suppose anyone tries to steal her toys! It's also a possibility that she feels anxious around teh other puppies, and that is coming out by being over posessive of her toys.

I can see why your trainer dealt with it the way she did, but I don't think it was helpful. that experience would've taught Maddie that it's important not to drop her prized posessions or they mmight vanish!

I would tackle this proactively, and set out to teach her that hands come to give and not take.

Start out with giving her something boring (more rawhide chew than pigs ear) and when she's settled into chewing it, go over to her with a tasty treat (eg cheese or hotdog) and shove it under her nose. When she drops the treat, lure her away with the tasty treat in your right hand, and move her head away from the chew. While she's busy with the tasty treat, sneakily pick up the chew with your other hand (don't let her see) and feed her the tasty treat. When she's finished, she'll turn back to her chew and realise it's gone. At that point, hand it back to her.

The reason you dn't want her to see you pick up the chew, is that you don't want her to get that panic where she thinks 'hey that's my chew!' and reacts instinctively, the first she realises that her chew has gone she gets it back.

When she's perfectly happy with you doing that, gradually start to increase the value of the chew.

She seems to have a tendency to be protective of things, which isn't your fault it's just her personality, so you'll need to put a lot of work in to keep it in check and reduce her anxiety.

[Tilis Naruchiga]

I think Maddie saw the extra treats as a reward for barking and growling and getting upset. If you appease her that way every time she gets upset, she might end up acting "upset" at random moments to get extra treats.

When she growls, maybe you should smack her head or nose with your finger and say "No!" When she snaps at you, give her a good thump on the nose and say "No," then take the treats and put them away. She'll eventually catch on and realize, "If I snap or keep growling, I lose my yum-yums."

[emmabeth]

Whilst theoretically its possible a dog will learn to behave upset to earn treats, in this instance it is extremely unlikely.

If you start thumping dogs on the nose and smacking them on the head, they will learn to fear you. When they do this, they will learn to defend themselves and learn to BITE.

Please do not advise physical violence on this forum. There may be other forums that suit your ideas better, this one is about positive kind dog training methods, that are safe and result in safe happy dogs.

The advice you have just given is dangerous and it is cruel, beyond that it is incredibly stupid.

[Tilis Naruchiga]

I'm sorry. My parents won't let me have pets because they're too expensive. I got a frog once and took care of him, but for some reason he got sick. My fish died, and every kitten we get disappears, probably because of our old cat Dudley who dislikes any male cat who enters the house. My dad doesn't like dogs. We almost got a puppy once, though.

I think I would do relatively well having a dog. I accidently taught my cousin's dog, Fluffy, the sit command. He always tried to greet me by jumping up and putting his paws on me, so I'd tell him to sit, and he made a habit of greeting me by sitting at my feet and waiting for a good scratch behind the ears and a "Good boy, Fluffy!"

[Mattie]

When she growls, maybe you should smack her head or nose with your finger and say "No!" When she snaps at you, give her a good thump on the nose and say "No," then take the treats and put them away. She'll eventually catch on and realize, "If I snap or keep growling, I lose my yum-yums."

I know of dogs that have had to be pts because someone gave the owner this sort of advice, it doesn't stop the behaviour, it makes it a lot worse. I even know of a message board were an owner tried to sue because someone gave this type of bad advice but luckily all the other advice was good, the owner had gone for a quick fix and like all quick fixes, they don't work.

If someone came up to you and pushed/hit you, what would your reaction be? Most people would react in an aggressive way but we expect dogs not to.

[Tilis Naruchiga]

Okay, okay, I know that was bad advice! I don't know. I'm tired and under a lot of stress right now, and I have a lot of frustration bottled up. I need to "kill" a pillow.

Dogs, like humans, should be treated with respect, which is why I sometimes nearly cry when I watch shows like Animal Cops Houston.

By the way, I don't think you should be impatient with your dog when you're trying to train it. Some dogs aren't as smart as others, while some dogs just get bored with training and don't pay attention. =)

About the growling, though, I don't know. Your husband shouldn't have taken the pig ear from your puppy in the first place. Sometimes, when my younger cousin and I play with the dogs Fluffy and Toby, Fluffy takes a toy to himself and chews on it. Gracie (my cousin) tried to take the toy from him once, and he tensed his muscles, bit down on the chew toy, and gave a short growl. Then again, Fluffy seems to be the dominant dog. Anyway, dogs don't like things to be taken from them.