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Pupforum presents your training questions answered by professional dog trainers.
Elaine has been training dogs professionally for 14 years. She is a CPDT as well as an endorsed member of NADOI. She is also certified in narcotics detection and is one half of a (twice) certified explosives detection team - the other half being her Dutch Shepherd Spawn, who is also titled in several protection sports. Elaine is the owner of Canine's Best Behavior, a Los Angeles based training company, offering Basic Manners, CGC, K9 Games (soon!) as well as behavior modification for aggression fears phobias etc.
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[Edit]
3/20/2006
Hi there, My situation is this, we have had a Golden Retriever for about 2 years now. He is a very well behaved and loving dog. We have recently got a new puppy, an American Bulldog, and the situation seemed to be going very well. They do seem to play fight a lot, but there has never seemed to be any serious aggression from either of the dogs.
My problem is this, the Golden Retriever has suddenly become very food protective. He actually bit my husband when he accidentally bumped him when he was eating. When he was a puppy I made sure that I trained him not to protect his food by playing with it and him while he ate. He has never shown any type of aggression before, and I'm not sure what I should do. Do you try to re-train him and teach him that you can touch his food with the new puppy somewhere else? Do you punish him for the biting, or maybe hold him down to show that you are dominant? Or do you just need to accept it and feed them at different times? Please write back as i am at a loss of what to do, thank you so much for your time (sarahlouise1980, Texas)
If your dog has suddenly become food protective (to the point of biting) then you may want to try a few things:
- Rule out medical problems that could have possibly been low lying and the stress of the new puppy may have pushed to the fore front. Did you know that Dr. Dodds-the leading expert in auto immune disorders says that Golden Retrievers are the number one breed of dog presenting hypothyroidism? Hypothyroidism and aggression are very good friends. I would suggest that you get a baseline basic blood panel looking for anything in the high or low range. If the thyroid is lowish, you may want to go further with a complete thyroid panel
. Dr. Dodds has much information on her web site www.hemopet.com. In a nutshell, you cannot train a sick dog.
- Rather than mess with his food in an attempt to retrain at this moment (something that might make things worse if the core issues are not addressed), I would create a safe environment for him to eat his food in peace. I wouldn't allow the puppy to wander over while your Golden is eating.
Another thing to consider is that with all the extra added playing he may need more food. Sometimes dogs on diets can suddenly become possessive when it was no big deal before. Increasing his food a bit may make a big difference if she is just plain and simple hungry.
- You may also want to consider a routine de-worming. The new puppy may have brought something into your home and passed it onto him. Easy enough fix. The standard recommendation is to de worm quarterly. I want to feed my dog not parasites!
Once you have resolved both medical and mental concerns, then gradually re introduce a plan of desensitization. Jean Donaldson has a great book about resource guarding it's called Mine! and you can create a program easily after reading it.
- The arrival of the new puppy may have threatened his status in your home. Muscling him into an involuntary alpha role or punishing him (particularly after the fact) will make things worse.
Give him more space to eat in peace, address any potential medical causes and maybe take them both through an obedience course together so they can both be on more or less the same playing field.
Hope that helps.
Elaine Allison CPDT NADOI
Canine Behavior Consultant
Canine's Best Behavior
1.866.K9s.Best
www.caninesbestbehavior.com
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