Food Aggression - Stop Food Guarding, Stop Resource Guarding

Food aggression occurs because some dogs associate humans or other dogs coming near their food or stuff as being a bad thing.

Maybe you have a rescue dog that has had to fight for his food in an earlier life. Maybe you have been inadvertently taking food or other objects away from your dog, and now he thinks he needs to guard his belongings. Certain dog breeds (guard dogs) may also have a higher tendency to guard.

To reduce food aggression, make sure your dog associates humans approaching him with something positive. If your dog is aggressive and causing bite wounds as a result of food aggression; contact a professional trainer.

Never try to take food or other items away from an unknown dog. Even seemingly easy-going dogs may sometimes try to guard their food and toys.

Add something really good to your dog's food bowl.

A good way to solve food aggression issues is to show your dog that people and dogs coming near him during dog feeding time is a positive thing.

Approach your dog while he is eating and throw some good dog treats into his food bowl (e.g. cheese or bacon). Do not reach down to pet him or stroke him. Keep repeating this until he is looking forward to you coming over. Once he is no longer aggressive, you can take the food bowl away, show him that you are adding yummy treats into it, then give it back to him.

I also take other objects (e.g. paper, sticks) away from my Shiba Inu, add food to it, and give it back to him. Sometimes I add food into his food toys or help him get the food out.

If you do all this often enough, your dog will be looking forward to having you around during his meals.

My Shiba Inu sometimes brings his toys over to me in the hopes that I will add some food!

Hand-feed your dog.

Only do this if your dog is not aggressive and does not have a bite history.

Hand-feeding occurs naturally when you use reward obedience training on your dog. I also hand-feed my dog during dog grooming and handling exercises.

Hand-feeding shows your dog that the hand is a really good thing and yummy food comes from it. It can also strengthen your bond with your dog because he sees that food comes directly from you.

Hand-feeding can also help you establish pack leadership because you can set the speed of feeding, you can demand good eating manners (i.e. no grabbing and soft mouth), and you can ask for dog training commands (e.g. Sit or Down before getting any food).

It is generally a good idea to keep up with some hand-feeding throughout your dog's lifetime to maintain good bite inhibition.

Teach your dog the Drop command.

First give your dog a fairly low priority and safe toy. When he takes it in his mouth, bring a high priority treat to his nose and say Drop. Chances are he will drop the toy to try and get at the treat. As soon as he drops the toy, mark the behavior (i.e. say Yes), give him the treat, and give him back the toy.

Let him play with the toy for a bit before repeating the exercise. Once he understands the command, you can try with higher priority toys and ultimately food toys.

If your dog is refusing to drop objects, then try using a higher priority treat. If instead your dog bites on you, then do a time-out. Do not overtax your dog. End the session early and on a positive note so that your dog will be motivated to play this game again.

Remember to also practice Drop sessions with your dog during walks; with sticks and other safe objects. This will help generalize the Drop command to outside the house, and to outside objects such as sticks.

During dog walks, I try my best to keep my dog away from questionable objects. If he does get one, though, I will non-mark him (ack-ack) then hold a good treat by his nose. Once he drops the item, I praise him and treat him.

If I really want an item back, I will hold firmly on the item (close to his muzzle) and give the Drop command. It is important that you do not pull back and make it into a tug game. Just hold it still and be as uninteresting as possible. Your dog will quickly lose interest and drop the item. If he does this, praise him and treat him.

Do not try this technique if your dog is aggressive and has caused puncture wounds before.

If an object is dangerous and is too small to hold, you may have to forcibly go into your dog's mouth. Your dog will really hate it, but if you must do it, then you must do it. Make sure to do some simple commands afterwards so that you can treat him for his positive actions.

If you frequently remove items by force, your dog may get aggressive and start guarding food and other objects from you.

Play the "object exchange" game.

An alternative to simply teaching the Drop command is to play the object exchange game with your dog.

First, bring out several toys of about equal priority. Give one of the toys to your dog and let him play with it for a short time. Issue the Drop command, and exchange the old toy with a new one.

Initially, it may be necessary to sweeten the pot with some treats as well. Sometimes, I stuff the new toy with some food, so not only does my dog get a new toy, he also gets one with food in it. He is usually very happy to make that exchange.

Once you notice that things are going well, you may phase out the treats and just do the object exchange. If your dog is unwilling to give up his current toy then you may try to lengthen the time that he gets to play with it, or add food into the equation again.

If your dog misbehaves in any way (e.g. bites on your hand), then the game stops, and all toys and food are removed.

Get strangers to toss food to your dog.

When you have guests, give them some yummy treats so that they may toss food to your dog. This will make your dog associate new people with yummy food, so that he will be less food aggressive when strangers are around.

If your dog has a bite history, make sure you have him on a leash so that your guests are always safe. You may also place your dog behind a secure dog gate, and have your guests feed the dog by extending a chopstick or wooden spoon with food through the gate.

This will desensitize your dog towards having new people around his food, and make him less food aggressive towards strangers.

Ensure there are no high priority food items lying around when strangers are present.

To reduce food aggression, it is important that you do not let your dog practice that behavior, especially with humans. Remove all food items as well as food toys and high-priority toys when you have human guests over.

It is important to remove all food and all toys when your dog is meeting with new dogs, or dogs that he does not know well.

Supervise your dog and intervene when he starts to show food aggression.

Make sure you are always there to supervise and intervene when your dog starts to show any food aggression. When you are not around to supervise, remove all high priority food and resources, so that he cannot practice food or resource guarding behaviors on his own.

The house rule is; "all resources are mine, and I decide which of my dogs get what". Whenever I give them food toys, I make sure I am around to supervise. I keep them away from each other to prevent stealing. In this way, they do not get to practice any resource guarding or food aggressive behavior.

If they start any food aggressive behavior, I remove the resource and nobody gets it. If they show any aggressive behavior with me, they get a time-out, and the play and food session stops.

Do not give your dog constant access to food.

If you leave food or food toys around, your dog may feel that he has to guard it and become food aggressive. This can become very stressful for your dog and may also lead to obesity issues.

Leaving food around may also weaken your leadership position because your dog can get food by himself. He may decide not to follow your commands or house rules because he does not really need anything from you.

Be a good pack leader to your dog and follow the Nothing in Life is Free (NILIF) program. Only give him something, if he does something for you first. Stuff left-over food into his food toys and make him work for it. Remove the food toy once it is empty or after a fixed period of time.

A busy dog is a good dog.