Would You Breed A Dog With Food Aggression?

[Jimmay]

I have a bit of a question for the breeders out there.

Would you breed a dog that has food aggression/resource guarding issues?

Would it be considered a temperament fault that could possibly be passed down to the pups? Or is it simply just a learnt behaviour.

[Sandra777]

Staffordshire Bull Terrier breeder here - I would not breed from a dog which showed any aggression towards humans no matter what the reason, unless it was in defence of the dog's people in the face of a genuine threat from another human. Unprovoked (seriously unprovoked too) human aggression in any form is totally unacceptable in Staffordshire Bull Terriers so that's my position when I breed. No matter what the cause, the fact is the dog is human aggressive.

Other breeds, other stances no doubt.

Edited October 14, 2010 by Sandra777

[~Anne~]

I would say that at least 40% of all of the Pugs Ihave known show food aggression to other dogs, not humans though. Which are you referring to?

[raineth]

I have heard that a lot of Frenchies have food aggression. Which seems to indicate that it is heredity.

I think they are only food aggressive toward other dogs however.

Interesting from Annes post as i believe pug is one of the breeds used in the genesis of french bulldogs?

[SkySoaringMagpie]

Not a simple answer sort of question.

Resource guarding behaviours can be taught by owners who don't know what they are doing. So it is not always genetic.

Resource guarding behaviours also vary a lot. I would not breed from a dog that challenged humans for resources despite good training. Is that what you are asking?

Edited to say that sometimes resource guarding behaviours are taught by humans who are poorly executing training programs to prevent resource guarding behaviours. That's particularly unfortunate and sad. While I think a human should be able to take something off a dog anywhere, anytime, doing it to a dog too often and in the wrong way can train in a world of trouble.

Edited October 14, 2010 by SkySoaringMagpie

[Bullbreedlover]

I have heard that a lot of Frenchies have food aggression. Which seems to indicate that it is heredity.

I think they are only food aggressive toward other dogs however.

Interesting from Annes post as i believe pug is one of the breeds used in the genesis of french bulldogs?

Very small Bulldogs and a Terrier breed of sorts

There aint no pug in there

well not unless a lacemaker snuck one in

[Bullbreedlover]

In my opinion food aggression can be brought about by a number of circumstances. In my opinion the least of which is inherited. But other people could have other stories to tell.

[Christina]

My 5 will all sit, wait nicely & eat their own food without bothering each other at all.

Put 5 pigs ears or bones down & they will kill (as much as toy poodles can ) to get each others as well as their own.

If I want to take them all away I can, me scary.

So being this food aggressive I have to say yes I would breed.

[OSoSwift]

Would depend, if it was towards humans, I would eer on the side of not, but as mentioned it can be brought about by careless handling.

If it was my Whippets I would probably not as that sort of temperment is very unlikely, if it was my Dobes and was aggression towards other dogs it wouldn't worry me. If it was towards people and I had owned the dog since it was young, then most definately not.

[sandgrubber]

ONLY if they had been properly trained, eg, the Triangle of Temptation approach, and that hadn't curbed the problem. I think 99% of food aggression is preventable by proper training. If food aggression were part of a complex of aggression issues, that would be another question.

[aussielover]

I do believe that many dogs have a natural instinct to resource guard which is genetic. I don't actually believe this is abnormal behaviour in most cases. I've seen plenty of pups that begin to exhibit the warning signs of resource guarding, however, these can usually be corrected with early training and intervention and in 99% of cases never cause any problems later on in the life of the dog.

If my own personal dogs exhibited resource guarding that could not be corrected with appropriate training and persisted when the dog got older (ie around breeding age), then I would probably chooose not to breed from it. If it only did it to other dogs then that is is different story, it hardly means its going to be a danger to people.

My own previous dog was severely food aggressive to other dogs, it was dangerous to feed her around other dogs, yet we could take a juicy bone from her mouth with no fuss at all. So i don't think the 2 are necessarily connected.

Edited October 14, 2010 by aussielover

[~Anne~]

I believe that Pugs are born this way, it isn't anything to do with training. They view food so highly and are gluttons. I don't understand why that doesn't transfer to humans though as well, but I am gald it doesn't. I am not sure if the aggression itself is a genetic trait though, but more so the genetic trait of gluttony would be the cause???

My estimation of 40% is possibly a tad conservative to be honest.

In the last 5 years, I have had over 55 adult Pugs come through my rescue and not one showed any aggression towards me if I went for their food. Many would inhale it all the more quickly if they thought I wanted to take it, but they would not growl or show any signs of aggression. Some however were VERY reactive to other dogs and one would attack another dog that was more than 2 metres away from them while they ate!

Edited to add - resource guarding of toys was not as common as food guarding.

Edited October 14, 2010 by ~Anne~

[Jimmay]

Thanks for the replies guys, some very interesting posts there!

The reason I ask is that I saw a post on my facebook that went along the lines of "my dog stole some chicken out of the bin, then when i went to take it off her she growled and snapped at me.. omg.." I left her some advice, she told me she got given her own advice from her vet, who pretty much said she was just going through PMS and is challenging her authority so she has to stand her ground and take away the food if she's acting that way (which I think just renforces the behaviour, but anyway). Long story short I then went on to find out she plans to breed from this dog once she is old enough. I don't know I guess that kind of didn't sit well with me, cause I would expect that sort of aggression, especially displayed at such a young age, may be passed down to the pups, but i'm no expert so I wasn't sure if I should mention anything to her.

:Edited to add the dog is 7months:

Edited October 14, 2010 by Jimmay

[raz]

The reason I ask is that I saw a post on my facebook that went along the lines of "my dog stole some chicken out of the bin, then when i went to take it off her she growled and snapped at me.. omg.."

Tell her to secure the bin so the dog cant access whatever is dumped in it. I hope it wasnt cooked chicken on the bone...

Interesting about the pugs. I've never noticed it in Pancake but I dont feed my dogs together. She certainly wouldnt dare growl at me if I took her food away, though.

Edited October 14, 2010 by raz

[aussielover]

Thanks for the replies guys, some very interesting posts there! ;)

The reason I ask is that I saw a post on my facebook that went along the lines of "my dog stole some chicken out of the bin, then when i went to take it off her she growled and snapped at me.. omg.." I left her some advice, she told me she got given her own advice from her vet, who pretty much said she was just going through PMS and is challenging her authority so she has to stand her ground and take away the food if she's acting that way (which I think just renforces the behaviour, but anyway). Long story short I then went on to find out she plans to breed from this dog once she is old enough. I don't know I guess that kind of didn't sit well with me, cause I would expect that sort of aggression, especially displayed at such a young age, may be passed down to the pups, but i'm no expert so I wasn't sure if I should mention anything to her.

:Edited to add the dog is 7months:

oh

I've seen 8 weeks old puppies display resource guarding with both food and toys. It is somehting i would think is fairly natural inj a youngish puppy, it is more like a survival instinct rather that genetic aggression problem i would have thought though.

By 7 months though, the dog should have been trained to accept people taking away possessions though. it sounds like this dog has a training problem and leadership problem more than a genetic aggression issue though.

even so, a person with very little idea of how to train and raise dogs should certainly not be breeding!!!!

This dog needs professional help now as the owner has demonstrated they have little knowledge of the subject. Also the dog has already learnt that biting= successful

The advice from the vet is shameful and they should know better

[raz]

it sounds like this dog has a training problem and leadership problem more than a genetic aggression issue though.

Hmmm it looks more like the owner has a leadership problem than anything else, Aussie.

[raineth]

Thanks for the replies guys, some very interesting posts there!

The reason I ask is that I saw a post on my facebook that went along the lines of "my dog stole some chicken out of the bin, then when i went to take it off her she growled and snapped at me.. omg.." I left her some advice, she told me she got given her own advice from her vet, who pretty much said she was just going through PMS and is challenging her authority so she has to stand her ground and take away the food if she's acting that way (which I think just renforces the behaviour, but anyway). Long story short I then went on to find out she plans to breed from this dog once she is old enough. I don't know I guess that kind of didn't sit well with me, cause I would expect that sort of aggression, especially displayed at such a young age, may be passed down to the pups, but i'm no expert so I wasn't sure if I should mention anything to her.

:Edited to add the dog is 7months:

I'm not a breeder... so have to take my comments with a grain of salt.

I wouldn't breed from a dog that displayed that behaviour.

Unless I was 100% sure that it was the result of bad training/handling.

I am a firm believer in the stress-diathesis type model. Which says that in regards to behaviour an organism will have a genetic tendency to behave in a certain way and then environmental factors will influence that.

So you could have a dog that has a high genetic tendency to be a resource guarder, and it only takes a small amount of clumsy handling on the part of a human to bring that out. While another dog would be genetically quite unlikely to develop resource guarding and you would need a really big environmental factor to bring that out.

[OSoSwift]

Sounds like the dog has a handler problem.

I would say there is a bit of shakey ground surrounding who is the leader in their relationship.

My Dobes would potentially try to kill each other over something they both wanted (and did try once until they were seperated for good) but they never showed any aggression towards myself or another human in regard to food, toys or belongings.

[Moselle]

Temperament is most certainly genetic and any dog showing aggression esp towards people should NOT be bred from and should be desexed.

Edited October 15, 2010 by Moselle

[poodlemum]

I agree with those who've said that it depends whether the aggression is displayed towards another dog or towards a human. I have seen Harrison show food aggression to another entire male, but I can take a bone out of his mouth no problem. I think some measure of food aggression is natural and, as long as it is not shown to humans, not necessarily a problem.

ETA - in the wild, a dog that did not have a certain amount of food aggression would quickly starve to death!

Edited October 15, 2010 by poodlemum