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please can any one help. my dog is food aggressive and has snapped at my husband after he tryed to take a chew off her. she has also snapped at me while i tryed to wipe her feet. on both occasions she has drawn a small amount of blood. She is great with other dogs, cats and children and has never shown any aggression to any ever. She is a rescue dog which we have had for about a year and is now about two years old. she attends regular training sessions and has just passed her bronze kennel club award. so she is not all bad. However she is completely hyperactive and can be very wary of people she meets out when walking. I am at a loss to know what to do with her and she is on the verge of being returned to the rescue center which really sticks in my throat. I have always had rescue dogs and have always overcome their problems but this one is proving a little bit tougher than i had hoped. she has ideas above her station which i am hoping is just a phase she is going through but it needs addressing immediately before it gets out of hand.
Ok, ive got a little 'experiment' for you to do here. I did this with a friend of mine the other day, whose 3 year old dog growled and airsnapped at her partner when he took a bone off her.
Cook your dinner, and, when your partner is about to put say a slice of pizza or something into his mouth. Lean over really fast and snatch it away from him.
Hopefully he wont actually have hit you or stabbed you wtih his fork, so if you are both uninjured, ask him how that actually felt. Hes probably mad as hell so you might need wait and calm down.
Tell him to do the same thing to you at some unspecified time over the next day or so.
You will feel incredibly, surprisingly angry and you will probably feel like swearing at him, or hitting him, when he does it to you. He probably felt like that when you did it to him.
Certainly, my friend, when i suddenly leaned over and snatched a slice of pizza out of her hand as it was on route to her mouth, swore at me and raised a hand - and shes not an angry or violent person in general.
IF you do this experiment, you will see that having something you believe to rightfully be yours snatched away from you provokes emotions and reactions in you that you wouldnt normally display.
Now if you did do that experiment (and i strongly suggest you NEED to do this), see if you now feel a bit MORE wary about your partner stealing your food, if he leans near you, do you want to move your food away from him a bit?
You probably do, even though you KNOW it was an experiment and you know hes not going to take your food again.
Your dog doesnt know this, she doesnt know that you view chews you gave her as beign yours. You gave them to her, they are HERS. So yes, if you go to take her food she might well react, and the more you give and then take away, the worse her reaction will be.
So, heres some rules.
1/ Dont give what you may take away later.
2/Dont take without offering a swap.
3/ Train a 'leave', dont just take.
If you want her to willingly leave items, train her to leave them by givng her a really boring item then offering her a better one as a swap. Gradually increase the value of the item you give her, make sure the swap is also valuable though. Dont go expecting her to swap a juicy bone for a lump of boring kibble.
If you give her something though, its HERS. Dogs dont understand the concept of 'lend' and 'borrow', they understand 'mine' and 'not mine'. If its in a dogs mouth, or under his paw, or in his bowl, it belongs to the dog. If you dont want the dog to have it, DONT GIVE IT.
Giving items and taking away again, punishing for growling and upping the punishment for snapping is the absolute best way on earth to teach a dog to be aggressive around food. Thats not the dog 'not knowing its place' thats a human being a fool.
A dog will only 'know its place' if you give consistant and FAIR boundaries at all times. If you say 'yes you can have this.' and then suddenly say 'no you cant have that', then thats neither consistant, OR fair is it?
If shes aggressive around her food bowl, then you can try the 'four bowl trick', which will teach her in a way SHE can understand, that humans near food bowls = good.
Put four bowls out, space them out well. Take a handful of low value food to start with, walk round the bowls adn drop a piece of food in each bowl. As she eats that piece, drop a piece in the next bowl, and so on.
If she rushes ahead to check other bowls thats fine, theres only food in the one you are just passing.
Practice this very regularly adn increase the value of the food. She will associate then, that people near the food bowl = food.
Do not EVER take away a bowl to add food, she doesnt see the 'add food' part, she will only be aware of the 'take away' part.
Now, hyperactiveness.
How is she hyperactive, what sets her off. Could she be nervous and the hyperactivity is a sort of outlet for this? Or it could be that shes hyperactive and so finds normal things far more scary?
I would work on a slow program of reassociating people with nice treats from you, and as she gets better, perhaps get some 'strangers' to toss a treat in her direction etc.
If you do that you MUST prevent absolutely, anyone putting her in a position where she shows fearful behaviour. That means dont let anyone approach her, dont let them back her into a corner etc. Thats your responsiblity.
Snappy over feet. Again, desensitize slowly, perhaps her feet hurt, or she associates people touching feet with pain that is strongly remembered but no longer physically there.
Offer her a treat and touch a foot. Reward with another treat. Dont make a big deal over touching paws, its not a battle, distract her with some cheese in your hand, and dab at a foot. Do l ittle sessions several times a day, dont try to go for it all in one go.
Hope that helps, if you give us more info aroudn the fear around people and the hyperactivity, we might be able to help more.
Oh, and what is she fed, soemtimes food can cause problems.
What are you doing at the moment when she snaps at you or your husband? Also have you spoken to your trainer about it?
It's unlikely that she's getting ideas above her station as you put it, the fact she's wary of strangers makes it seem to me as though she's not a confident dog, and is worried both about having to protect her food and being restrained when her feet are being dried.
A good way of practicing 'leave it' is to have a piece of food in your hand, and close your fist around it. As she sniffs the food, say 'leave it' (she wont at this stage) and ignore her attempts to get the food (licking, chewing, pawing etc) and at some point, she will take her nose away from your hand for a split second to think about what to do. That's the point you say 'good girl, take it' and give her the food. You need to reward her the second you see daylight between her nose and your fist.
After several repetitions, she'll be willingly taking her head away when she hears you say 'leave it'. Then you can progress to holding your hand open, ready to close your fist if you need to (remember dogs don't generalise well so she'll understand 'leave that closed fist' but that wont necessary translate to 'leave food in all situations' so it will need to be practiced in lots of different ways) When you've got her leaving food in your open hand, progress to having it on the floor (be ready to prevent her getting it) and she's learning two messages, one is that if you say leave it, she will be rewarded for taking her attention away from the thing she's focussing on, and also she wont be able to get it anyway. It's at these stages you WANT her to make mistakes so you can prevent her getting her reward.
As for taking items she already has, give her something boring like a rawhide chew, let her chew it for a little while and then take a tasty piece of food (like cheese, hotdog, liver etc) in your right hand, wave the tasty stuff under her nose, and move it away from the chew (to the right) so she's following it and turns her back on the chew, with your left hand, pick up the chew (make sure she doesn't see you pick it up) and feed her the cheese from your right hand. When she's finished the cheese and returns to her chew, you hand it back to her. She'll be learning that you coming near her chew is a good thing because you give her stuff rather than taking it away. She also wont panic about you taking her stuff because you give it back. As Em says, you need to start off with a boring chew and then progress in value.
Remember that resource guarding is really natural in dogs, my lowest ranking dog will defend things from the highest ranking dog, because in dog law posession is ten tenths of the law! Resource guarding is often made much worse in a badly raised litter (the pups who shout the loudest get the food) when pups are weaned there should always be more food bowls than there are puppies to prevent arguments. The problem's made worse by humans because we either physically reprimand the dog, or take the approach of punishing the growling by taking the food away. I don't always like to share my chips, and if someone kept stealing them, and then when I asked them to stop they took the whole lot away, I'd get pretty aggressive pretty quickly and if they even walked into a room while I was eating I'd be unhappy.
There are loads of different ways to help dogs who have learned to protect their food, including the trick Em mentioned. There are ways you can progress to being able to take a bowl away to add food, but as Em said it's not wise to start off doing that because she's already anxious having you near her food. A good way to teach her to accept you handling her bowl is tethering the dog up so she can reach only half of her food bowl, and sit outside her tether, putting in a handful of food in at a time. When she's finished the handful, you can reach and take the bowl (if she's tethered properly she can only reach the half nearest her so you'll be safe from her teeth if she gets annoyed) ignore any growling, pop a handful of food in and then slide it back to her. When she's finished that handful, pull the bowl away pop more in etc. Soon she'll finish her handful, and look at you to fill it up again. When you reach that stage you can start putting tasty things in with her food while she's eating. If you've got your distances right, you can pop some cheese in the half of the bowl she can't reach, and then when she struggles you can help her out, either by picking up the cheese and feeding it to her, or pushing the bowl nearer to her (depending on how protective of her bowl she is). What you're teaching her that way is not only that it's good to have you around her food, but also that she can't get all her food without your help.
Resource guarding is one of the easiest problems to cure if done properly, unfortunately it's SO often done badly because people go down the punishment route which just reinforces to the dog that food is something that does need to be protected!
many thanks for the replies on my food aggressive dog. I will certainly try that experiment although I do get quite upset myself if someone trys to take my tia maria away from me. I am already up to the stage where i get her to sit and hand feed her and she doesn't get the food until she takes her nose off it. I taught her the leave command from the first day i got her so she isn't all bad. I certainly feel she is going through her adolescent stage and have now taken all her toys off her so she can not guard them either. She is definately not as confident outside as she is inside our house. I took her for a walk up the road yesterday which is probably the first time she has had proper road walking and she did not have a clue on what to do, her eyes were everywhere, and if someone walked past i took her to one side told her to sit and if she stayed sat while they went past she got a treat and told 'good girl'.
As far as her hyperactivity goes, i don't really know what sets her off. She is charging around from the moment she gets up. you can see that she loves life and wants to play all the time, but she gets that excited that it is a new day she sometimes can't control her own emotions and deal with different situations. I will keep you posted on how I get on. Obviously with her being a rescue i don't know any of her background so I am dealing with things as they come.
many thanks again. x x
If you have taught her a leave command properly and if she was confident that nothing unfair is going to happen, she'd not need to guard anything.
You say 'shes not all bad'.
Ill say, shes not 'bad' AT ALL.
What is happening is shes underconfident and insecure, she doesnt understand YOU and your intentions. That doesnt make her bad at all, it might make you bad at communicating on a level she understands though.
This all seems to be about her being 'good' and knowing her place, im not seeing anything from you to help that happen in a positive way.
2/ You mention taking her for a road walk. You ask her to sit and if she stays sat she gets a treat.
Whats that treat for? For staying sat? For being confident around people? What do YOU want from her.
IF she was mine Id want her to be confident and happy around people. Currently she sounds like she isnt at all, guarding toys, wary of people outside....
A dog complying with your commands does not mean that dog is confident and happy. Just because you want a calm quiet 'sit' when a stranger goes by and you get it, does NOT mean that your dog as learned that people are a Good Thing and to be unafraid of them.
Back to your road walk, if you want her to sit and thats your aim, reward a 2 second sit, then a 4 second sit then a 9 second sit. Do these with and without distractions, up the level of distraction as she gets better at it.
IF your aim is that she is not wary of people, that she doesnt lunge at them and bark or try to run from them, you dont ASK her to do anything. You get her to associate people and at first just 'people in the distance' working up to 'people who walk up to me and talk to me' by rewarding her for simply seeing people and not reacting.
The way to get the 'not reacting' part is NOT to make her do something else, ie sit, but to start off so far away from the people that they dont matter to her and work your way up closer.
THIS wya she will trust you, she will see people and look to you for her reward, people = reward.
She doestn sound confident in the house - confident dogs dont tend to guard things. Guarding things stems from having things taken away - so taking things away is not going to cure that problem at all, and depending how its done is going to make them worse.
Guarding things can also stem from lack of attention, a fast way to get anyones attention is to take a valuable item and run off with it - I can almost guarantee any dog owner whose bored dog takes the mobile phone or the sky remote and disappears with it is going to chase that dog and wahey, instant game!
Neither situation though shows a dog who is comfortable and happy in his relationship with his owners.
If shes guarding toys, WHY? Does she fear that you will take them away? Are they toys that are incredibly stimulating for her?
Give her a good selection of toys, and keep back, another good selection of toys.
Teach her to give up a toy in return for a better one, or for a piece of cheese or sausage.
DONT approach and attempt to simply take a toy, offer the swap first, the toys are HERS, not yours, you wouldnt approach your partner and simply snatch the magazine or mobile from them? Youd ask, you might offer something in return, but you wouldnt just take.
If toys are everywhere and untidy, get a crate to put them in, an open one and then you can clicker train her to put her toys away!
Hyperactive behaviour can stem from food, from lack of activity, from lack of mental stimulation and from confusion, insecurity etc.
Some complete dog foods, those especially high in sugars and colourants, like Bakers, Pedigree, Frolic, etc really will have a dog bouncing off the walls.
A better more natural food, designed to simply feed the dog, not appeal to owners or look funky, may help matters.
Adding little training sessions into the day with clicker work, and playing problem solving games (find the toy, find the treat, tracking etc), and food dispensing toys rather than meals in bowls, and time spent chewing real raw bones will all help keep a dog mentally and physically stimulated and therefore, calm!
I hope i havent totally offended you with the tone of my post, its not intended to offend its intended to make you sit back and think about how your DOG is thinking and about how you both interact. Im getting a distinct sense that you believe your dog should be 'good' and 'know her place' but get the feeling you are more used to forcing that, rather than encouraging it.
Finally, forget her past life. In day to day life, she probably has already, it will only be sudden breif moments that she will behave due to some rememberance of the past. Worrying about whats happened in the past only serves to prevent us moving on into the future! Just treat her as you would any other puppy, teach her how to be, allow her to learn, dont force.
Firstly, i would like to say that yes your tone in which you speak has offended me greatly! I am not all stupid or a novice dog owner. I have never forced anything upon my dogs and greatly believe in encouraging my dogs to learn from happy experiences. Both of my dogs attend regular training sessions as well as doing heelwork to music and they thoroughly enjoy it but they certainly do not get punished if there is something that they cannot or will not do.
My dog gets all the stimulation she needs in the way of clicker training, and playtimes and when I do have to leave her she gets a kong stuffed with food to occupy her while i am out.
She has never stolen anything like the remote etc... to get my attention all I am saying is that when it is time for bed or she is laying with a toy she will guard it for all her life but i have never taken her toys away from her while they have been in her possesion and they have always been in a crate and they get tidyied up regularly.
As far as the road walking goes it is very hard to get her to see people from a distance when they are actually walking towards you. If i did not do the sensible thing and take her aside when someone approaches, but did nothing instead and she lunged at the approaching person then surely that is irresponsible handling. surely feeding her while someone is walking past=approaching person means food? I have always owned rescue dogs and they have all had their own individual problems which eventually have been overcome. I do not believe that you cannot take into consideration their past life, especially if they are cruelty cases because with cases like that you have to work at the dogs own pace and what they are comfortable with.
I was giving the attention seeking thing as an example, not because i think your dog does that.
If shes guarding, shes got a reason, so you need to change your approach to solving it. Happy confident dogs dont guard.
If the place you walk means people must approach head on, change the place you walk. If you are asking for a behaviour adn then rewarding, the message isnt nearly so claer, the reward is for the sit, or is it for the people. You could find that she finds it too stressful being asked to do someting AND handle a person approaching, and stressful situations do not encourage the best learning.
Yes its easy for me to say that, but what do you want, do you want her to comply with your wishes regardless of her feelings or do you want her to be truly confident and happy about life.
I realise you are far from stupid - if you werent intelligent I wouldnt have bothered because you'd not be able to understand the differences in methods im discussing here.
I did not mean completely ignore the dogs past life, but you do not know what has happened, and there will be other people reading this asides from you. People who in my experience have a tendancy to spend their whole time going 'aww the poor doggy' and never ACTUALLY getting anywhere as they spend too long focussing on the past. By all means, consider it, as and when an issue arises, but dont linger over it, its gone now!
Im not interested in pleasing or offending people - all i am interested in is dogs having their problems sorted out.
You havent mentioned her food, nor responded to my theory that hyperactivity can stem from confusion and insecurity. So i cant help you there unless you have a think about that bit.
thanks for the reply. I can see what you mean about her trying to cope with two things at once but I am just trying to keep her as calm as possible in a situation that she finds difficult. so instead of getting her to sit would it be better to turn and walk in the other direction?
as far as her hyperactivity goes a classic example of this would be when she gets up in the morning she will go out for a wee and then come in for her breakfast. she will then have a mad half hour with my other dog.
later in the day she will get walked which includes playing ball for about an hour, then as soon as she gets home she is still hyper charging around for maybe another three quarters of an hour, whereas my other dog is quite happy to lay in his bed. twice a week she attends two hours of obedience lessons and one hour of heelwork to music lessons. each time she comes home from these i seem to be the only one that is tired as she still wants to play. she also gets training sessions at home as well as all this. I know she is only young but surely she needs to rest at some point. I have looked at her protein level in her food and it is at 18% which i didn't think was that bad, but instead of treats such as biscuits and chews now I am supplementing her diet with fruit and veg which she really enjoys.
tonight she stole an apple of the kitchen worktop so i offered her a rawhide chew instead and she chose that. so some progress is being made.
Can you find somewhere with a fairly high traffic of people where you can sit on a bench or wall away to one side, so people are going past, not coming straight on, and simply reward her for being near people, thus people become rewarding.
Turning around and walking away may lessen the stress but its not really going to teach her much positive about people and probably more importantly, its something you are going to really struggle to do consistantly.
Did you mention what breed or crossbreed she is... i am beginning to wonder if perhaps shes OVER stimulated.... it does happen. Or perhaps the stimulation is the wrong sort for her - couple of my dogs would love to move in with you right now, the other two would be ok at the jobs your dogs do but would still be bouncing off the walls, wanting more mental activity, more rough and tumble killing things style games...
Protein levels on foods are a tad misleading, a food may contain 18% protein but is that 18% all actually accessible to the dog. A leather shoe contains protein but youd struggle to access it by eating it...
I feed raw so my dogs get a LOT of protein, doesnt send them hyper at all, but feed them Wagg, Pascoes, CSJ, pedigree, bakers...... they are bouncing off the walls even after hours of hurtling about outside, yet all those foods will be lower in protein than their normal diet of chicken, lamb, tripe, veg and fish.
I am really not sure what she is crossed with. she stalks our other dog like a collie when out walking. Its like watching a wildlife program with the Lion stalking its prey, but she has the muscles and heaviness of something completely different. She can be very intelligent and is very quick to learn at training but can also be very very stubborn. She is beige and white. similar markings to a welsh collie and she is short haired with a tip of white at the end of her tail, oh and her eyes look like she has eyeliner on.
I have just found out why she snapped at me the other day while trying to wipe her paw. She had a big cut right across her pad so I had obviously hurt her. Will try sitting on a bench with her somewhere, problem is everyone always wants to come and ask about her because she is so pretty. Spoke to the behaviourist at our surgery today and she seemed to think that she has not been socialised properly with her previous owner. I think it will take quite alot of perseverence and training with her but hopefully we will get there in the end. Have given her back her toys and am now offering swops. She had to have surgery on her neck the other day to remove a wart so she cannot be walked for a bit but at the moment she is being very well behaved. She is fed on Burns food and am now giving her a bit of veg and fruit as snacks instead of hyper stuff.
I do not believe that you cannot take into consideration their past life, especially if they are cruelty cases because with cases like that you have to work at the dogs own pace and what they are comfortable with.
I have 5 rescue dogs, 2 have been abused and if you take into account their past like you are extending it for them instead of working through their problems.
You do have to take into account the abuse they have had, with one he has been beaten so I don't do anything that will give him the impression that this will happen again. I don't raise my hands high or quickly, but apart from that he is treated the way every dog in my house is treated.
I expect a certain standard of behaviour from all my dogs, but it is up to me to teach them what I want and if I take into account their past life, I can't do that. I don't expect them to know what I want, we don't expect our children to know without teaching them and they are the same species as us.
The first thing I do when I get a new rescue dog is th change the name, new name new beginning.
My 2 year old and my 5 month old always have a mad half hour after their breakfast, I don't stop it but do watch to make sure it isn't getting out of hand like I do with all play, if it is, then I stop it. I have found that one of my other dogs will stop this play when they have had enough and it is better coming from them than me.
There is always a reason why a dog snaps, if one of mind do I look at what I am doing then try and investigate why.
She is great with other dogs, cats and children and has never shown any aggression to any ever. She is a rescue dog which we have had for about a year and is now about two years old. she attends regular training sessions and has just passed her bronze kennel club award. so she is not all bad. However she is completely hyperactive and can be very wary of people she meets out when walking. I am at a loss to know what to do with her and she is on the verge of being returned to the rescue center which really sticks in my throat. I have always had rescue dogs and have always overcome their problems but this one is proving a little bit tougher than i had hoped. she has ideas above her station which i am hoping is just a phase she is going through but it needs addressing immediately before it gets out of hand. 
I am not all stupid or a novice dog owner. I have never forced anything upon my dogs and greatly believe in encouraging my dogs to learn from happy experiences. Both of my dogs attend regular training sessions as well as doing heelwork to music and they thoroughly enjoy it but they certainly do not get punished if there is something that they cannot or will not do.
