bad to our other dog with food

[sarah cole]

why dose my dog go for our other dog when food is about and how can i stop it

[Aidan]

It's one of those perfectly "normal" behaviours which MUST be changed in order to live in our world.

Behaviourists and trainers call it "Resource Guarding".

There is a wealth of information here:
http://www.k9events.com/behaviourR.htm

Another exercise (a favourite of mine which I will write up for www.PositivePetzine.com subscribers shortly), is to teach both dogs to "Go to Mat", then have each dog stay while the other gets a treat/attention/grooming/play.

The trick is to break it down into tiny little achievable steps. Some people try to force their dogs to stay on the mat, which makes matters considerably worse and isn't smart at all.

[Bea]

"why dose my dog go for our other dog when food is about"

Without knowing details abour your feeding routine my first reaction would be to say: "Because you allow it".
Do you just have the two dogs or are there more animals/dogs involved?

Estblish a feeding routine.
Y-o-u take control of the feeding progress, not them.
Y-o-u determine where they eat, whose bowl comes down first (I do this by rank as my "alpha" dogs eat slower than the others).

I assume the dogs know SIT, WAIT and each other's name?
You can train them up by
- getting them used to being fed in the same spot, each dog has their own spot
- having to sit and wait before the bowl comes down
- releasing them by calling their names from the WAIT

You can practice by having sit next to each other and hand-feed for a while, calling out the dog's name whose turn it is to take the food from your hand so they get the idea that everyone's turn will come eventually.
Same goes for petting/stroking them.

Also, I find it vital in multiple dog-families that the dogs do know the other dogs' names and I use different instructions/commands for different dogs in case I want one (dor or group) to do something different from the other, e.g. I want Columbus to stay in the kitchen and Opi to go outside. Opi gets HIS cue word for "outside" which means nothing to Columbus since he reacts to a different word.
As I have between 7 and 15 dogs in the house (of various size and weight) I find this useful in order to not start a commotion on the "let's go outside" command which can easily excite some dogs.

Good luck!
Bea

[Aidan]

Just an update, I've posted two parts of a three part series of articles on training multiple dogs to Go to Mat and stay there while another dog is fed, petted etc to www.positivepetzine.com