Food Aggression

[spyke88]

since getting the new pup luna, our 4 year old boy spider has been quite possessive - of food mainly but occasionally toys. any tips? i have begun to feed them separately. which is fine and i can do easily but the unfortunate part is noone gets bones etc because if they get buried and dug up while im out i worry what could happen if im not there to intervene. spider is my first dog. making luna my second. so im quite new to all things dog related.

he is fine with her at all other times. apart from the occasional warning growl when she is pulling his ears tail fur lips face etc and he is in sleep mode.

ideas?

[Greytmate]

since getting the new pup luna, our 4 year old boy spider has been quite possessive - of food mainly but occasionally toys. any tips? i have begun to feed them separately. which is fine and i can do easily but the unfortunate part is noone gets bones etc because if they get buried and dug up while im out i worry what could happen if im not there to intervene. spider is my first dog. making luna my second. so im quite new to all things dog related.

he is fine with her at all other times. apart from the occasional warning growl when she is pulling his ears tail fur lips face etc and he is in sleep mode.

ideas?

That all sounds a bit normal.

I would give a warning growl too if somebody pulled my ears while I was asleep, wouldn't you?

I put mine in their kennels to have their bones and remove any leftovers.

[Jigsaw]

I would feed bones separately either each in a crate or one inside, one outside. Bones can be the cause of many disputes as they are a highly prized resource.

THIS is a good book with great advice regarding dealing with multiple dogs.

The warning growls are probably pretty normal for an adult dealing with a pup, especially if he's in sleep mode! :D

[spyke88]

thanks guys - do you think she'll learn to leave his food bowl alone or should i just keep up with one on the deck the other shut out of it?

problem with bones pigs ears etc is spider tends to not want them straight away.. he buries them.. lets them get gross and then digs them up later,

thanks ill check out that book jigsaw :D

[megan_]

Keep them physically seperated, with a barrier in between. I feed my two in a crate, even though they have never shown resource guarding behaviour. They only get bones they can actually eat and get fed them in their crates. They soon learn to eat up. I'd love to leave them bones to bury/munch on for hours but I accept that it isn't going to happen in a multi dog household.

I wouldn't do it any other way. A family friend fed two dogs together that had been eating in peace for 8 years. Then one day the staffy attacked the ACD while they were eating bones. Result was a dead ACD. Just because things might look okay for a while doesn't mean that all is well.

[Leema]

You've received some good advice.

Mine are all crated for food, including bones. Any food they don't want is removed after 10 minutes, including bones. I'm sure Spider will learn to eat his bones 'ASAP' if he knows they're only available for a limited time.

[Greytmate]

thanks guys - do you think she'll learn to leave his food bowl alone or should i just keep up with one on the deck the other shut out of it?

problem with bones pigs ears etc is spider tends to not want them straight away.. he buries them.. lets them get gross and then digs them up later,

thanks ill check out that book jigsaw :D

That can mean he isn't hungry enough to eat them. You really want to avoid this happenning. Give him a bone to eat at the start of his meal when he is more inclined to want to eat it, and remove any leftovers before he is allowed to leave the crate or room you have him in.

Feeding this way not only helps to avoid fights, it allows you to properly monitor what the dog is eating. When dogs get access to each other's food, one of two things usually happens. Either one dog is happy to give up the food to avoid a conflict and the other dog gets fat, or they decide to challenge each other to it.

Over the dog's lives there will be subtle changes that mean that a challenge could happen one day, even between dogs that are mates. That is why we hear of sad stories like the ACD.

But mostly dogs that are kept in a way where they can eat in peace will not develop the defensive food guarding habits that a dog might have if it feels anxious about food.