Puppy Growling When Eating How To Stop?

[Willem]

You would expect a starving dog to be more aggressive around food, however in your typical household this would never be the case. You may have a greedy dog or one that is ready for its dinner, but I have come to find that they learn they will be fed and there's plenty for everyone. Any special treats given or found are still to be given up or allowed to be touched by humans if needed, all mine will do so with a happily (they all have easy going temperaments though).

...there can be good reasons for letting the dog fast sometimes or medical conditions (after diarrhea) when then value of the stimuli 'food' changes for a dog.

[*kirty*]

@ kirty: ..you never trust, but fully expect to be safe...?...

I was saying I don't trust Mary. I do trust my other dogs. Do I intentionally test them? No. Do I believe they would be fine if one of the kids happened to touch them while they were eating? Yes. I have high expectations of my dogs and have worked hard with them to ensure they are good canine citizens.

[corvus]

Dogs are not always rational! They don't necessarily understand that just because they have had enough food every day of their life, that they will have enough food today and they needn't protect what they have now from all perceived competitors. They don't know that we don't want their coveted items. Many dogs learn that we don't, many dogs are so eager to avoid conflict that they don't really guard in the first place. And some dogs are more willing to enter into conflicts to hold resources, and may feel their resources are threatened more easily than others. It's not necessarily something you can just "not tolerate" and it will somehow resolve, even if you work on it. And it absolutely can be influenced by anxiety and a heightened sense of threat in general. Sometimes it resolves on its own if you do nothing and just avoid triggering aggression. The dog learns that they needn't worry about you. Other times, some counter-conditioning is helpful. In extreme cases, it can be off the richter scale and there aren't many options. Point being, broad generalisations about how to fix resource guarding, what is "normal", and what can be safely managed or tolerated may be way off the mark sometimes, and the treatment may vary depending on the severity and interactions with broader emotional state. I have come to see this as a potentially complicated phenomenon.

[*kirty*]

I agree it is complicated and not always easy to fix. But if that had been the case with Mary, she would have been returned to the breeder. When I say 'not tolerated' I mean in my situation. A resource guarder is not going to work in my busy home full of kids, cats and other dogs. It just isn't safe.

[Bushriver]

I'm with you kirty. I wouldn't have a resource guarder in my house.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

where did OP go? Would love an update.

[twodoggies2001]

Neither of my two would even think about growling at any of the humans in my household. If we wanted to, we could take anything out of their bowls when they are eating but I must say, we don't make a habit of doing this.

When it's their feedtime, we just leave them to it.

Edited May 30, 2016 by twodoggies2001

[Roova]

It would be interesting to know how the pups were fed at the breeders too. I can imagine some feeding situations would encourage food guarding which wouldn't do pups any favours. Imagine a handful of food thrown (or placed) where it was first in best dressed, or even less food than pups. You'd have to be ultra protective to keep your prize! (Not saying that's what's happened but good chance something has led to food guarding in such a small tyke).

[Salukifan]

It would be interesting to know how the pups were fed at the breeders too. I can imagine some feeding situations would encourage food guarding which wouldn't do pups any favours. Imagine a handful of food thrown (or placed) where it was first in best dressed, or even less food than pups. You'd have to be ultra protective to keep your prize! (Not saying that's what's happened but good chance something has led to food guarding in such a small tyke).

That something is likely to be genetic.

Corvus would know better but I've read a few studies that suggest it has a genetic component and it is certainly more common in some breeds than others.

I recall Sue Sternberg commenting that in her experience it was no more common in a dog with a history of neglect and starvation than in well fed family pets.

That suggests that the root cause of the instinct to guard is not human created. That makes perfect sense to me.

I agree that a serious guarder is not a suitable dog for a family home. That, of course, doesn't help the OP one iota.

[Willem]

did some testing today to check on our dogs food guarding as described in post #8:

kibble and kangaroo meat fed in the bowl:

no problems at all, I can sit beside her, take kibble or chunks of meet out of the bowl and feed her from the hand - no signs of stress at all. Saying this, it is not really surprising considering that I use this food also as treats in training (sometimes more than 50% of her food ratio are treats) so she gets it anyway out of my hands.

bones / briskets: was a different story - see post #8;

she normally takes the bone / brisket out of the bowl, carries it to the lawn and enjoys gnawing at it. She still prefers to do this with company - but with a distance of approx. 2 meters between me and her. If I went closer in the past, she took the bone and moved away - same behaviour when the kids are around; if I moved away, she often followed, but kept the distance. Now today I went into the study and she followed me with the brisket, but didn't keep the distance...and even allowed me to pad her while she was still gnawing at the brisket - no signs of stress.

Now does this indicates that her instincts regarding food guarding are extinct?...I don't believe this, she just learned to trust me. Other people, kids or other dogs around and the behaviour will likely be totally different. Therefore I stick with the rules that the food is hers once it was handed over and she got the cue. Kids know they have to stay away, and no feeding when other dogs are visiting. I believe what ever procedure is adopted, it should allow the dog to feed without stress.

@OP: it seems that hand feeding could be one suitable method to minimize food guarding as the dog learns that 'hand' means food and not competition.

Edited May 30, 2016 by Willem

[corvus]

I have one dog who has never guarded anything in his life from anyone, and one who guards with increasing intensity as his anxiety increases, but strictly against other dogs. The most he will do if he's worried about us is eat very fast. And that is problem enough, really. Generally if he's worried we are going to take his food, it's because he just nearly choked on it and we want to make sure we find the bit he nearly choked on and take it away so he doesn't nearly choke on it again. Wolfing it down at that point just about guarantees he will nearly choke on it again. I highly doubt either dog non-aggressive towards us around food because of anything we have done, particularly. That's just who they are. The new one nipped my partner a while ago when he walked past her while she was eating a bone in the hallway. She growled at me, but was more easily reassured. I had forgotten about this when I was taking a pig tail out of her mouth the other day to move her to somewhere quieter to eat it. She was fine, but I expect she was fine because we have been giving her plenty of space since the incident to the point where it had become habit to set her up where she wouldn't be disturbed and give her the food when she was settled.

I have heard of dogs that will roar into the house from the yard and deliver multiple bites to someone because they went near a dresser that had a ball underneath it 2 days ago. There are some anecdotal suggestions that it can go off the rails particularly in retrieving breeds. Is retrieving a very mild form of resource guarding at its heart? We can only guess. And it doesn't matter as long as your retriever is happy to release the items they carry. Some people kind of expect it in herding breeds or livestock guardians. Whatever the case, it does seem to be inherent much of the time. It can also be easily overcome a lot of the time with good management and some counter-conditioning and/or desensitisation, but there are definitely cases where it's crazy and that's the dog wired wrong. You can't fix that with training.