Canine Master - Episode 29 Resource Guarding

You know, one of the things is that if you have a dog that is attacking you over resource guarding or we'll call food guarding or food protectiveness and the dog's going after and actually biting, you need to see a behavior. So this discussion is really going to be meant to help when it's starting and how to prevent it. I think it's really important. We know that, but if you are having a dog that has attacked you or bitten you, you need to reach out to somebody like myself.

We could either do it privately or on a zoom and you can contact Jamie Kelsey at Jamie Jaimee at dog on smart that's it dot com.

be your sunglasses. And you the owner go, oh my gosh, he has my sock and you run over to him and you go chuckles, how dare you give me that back? And you start getting angry. So the dog has it. It's in his mouth, and the dog is like, okay, I'm holding this resource. He's yelling at me or she's yelling at me. They want it. I don't know what to do, and they're getting angry at me. So when I have the resource, I'm now getting scared. You're yelling

at them. Maybe you grab them and you rip it out of their mouths, and you get violent with them because they've chewed up your favorite item. And the dog starts to get what we call stuck emotionally on what

to do. Doesn't know that letting it go will stop you from yelling grabbing them hard correction, doesn't know how to get out of the situation, and then get scared, and then what they do is they start to growl, and then you get more angry and you maybe come down harder on them, and then they're really getting defensive, and that's where it all starts, the aggression. So the worst thing that you can do when it comes to your dog having an item in its mouth is to

come down on him and correct them. You miss the training opportunity. The training time is when the dog is thinking about grabbing your sock, thinking about getting that wrapper off of the floor. That's the time to redirect them, to stop them. It's when they're thinking about it. You know, always in correction is the best time to think to correct the dog is when they're thinking about doing the behavior.

But in resource guarding, that's where it stops. You do not continue on to correct the dog once they are in possession of the object, You've missed the training opportunity.

get glazed over. I've had clients saying to me, oh, my dog almost looks like he's possessed, you know, I see this glaze come over his eyes, and it's it's not that. What's happening is your dog is stuck in a behavior and he doesn't know how to get out of it. And you're getting angry at him, and all he knows is that he has something in his mouth and you want it. He wants it, everybody wants it. It's a scarce resource. So now we are actually creating

resource guarding. That's where it starts. It starts with just one hard correction. And I can see sometimes people will grab the dog by the scuff of the neck. They'll yell, they'll scream, and the dog has never seen this kind of reaction before. And unfortunately the dog has your new pair of socks and you're you're getting angry and you're oh my god. Or the dog picked up a rock on your walk and you race to get to the dog, get me that rock in it out of its mouth,

give me that up, and you've missed the timing. So there's something else that happens. There's a syndrome called pica pica syndrome. Pica syndrome is when a dog starts swallowing the objects, and it really can be quite dangerous to your dog.

can be prevented, not fixed. I mean it can be fixed, but it also can be prevented. And so here's what we need to do. When my dog is a puppy and he grabs an object, the first thing is look at the object. Is the object worth fighting over or going after? Maybe he's just figuring out the world around

him with his mouth. He's picking up the stick, he's picking up the rock, he's picking up the piece of clothing, he's picking up the shoe, and he has it in his mouth, and you you know, why don't we just sort of redirect him onto something else, make it not interesting either ignore it, which is, if it's not harmful, then just ignore it. The second thing you can do is, if it is something that you want, try to distract

him on to something else. Grab a treat, get a squeaky ball, something that you want to play with him with, so he gets it's not so interesting you don't care about that object. The next thing is is not if the dog has the object, many times, if they are in possession of it. The last thing you want to do is react, and reactions look like this to your dog. You look at them, you look at them, you yell at them, you say chuckles, don't you dare? You know? He's got to give that back to me. So now

I've made it about the object. Okay, So what you want to do is a lot of times we tell people to put house lines on your dog. And that's like a on a flat collar. That's like a I don't know, four or five foot flat nylon inexpensive leash that I buy at pet Smart of the one of the stores, but it's not an expensive leash, and you take the loop handle, you cut that off, and now my dog has a house line. On while home and

when I'm supervising him, not ever left on unsupervised. So the dog has now my sock in his mouth, and I'm not gonna look at him. I'm going to kind of back up and I'm gonna step on that leash. I'm not gonna look at him, not gonna say anything to him. I'm going to grab the leash. I'm gonna reel him to me, not looking at him. I'm gonna bend down. I'm grad just gently got to take it out of his mouth and continue on play. Nothing happened, no reaction. The dog is totally all.

to harm my personal property in anyway? So those are the things. If it is nothing, why are we making it a big deal. If it is something that is your new pair of pants and he has it, or your your brand new shoes, that's something else. And if that's the case, this is what we do. The dog goes over to pick up a pair of shoes and as he starts walking over to get the shoes, he hasn't grabbed him yet. You correct him. Ah a guttural tone and instinctive warning chuckles. A ah no, no, no, no, no,

you correct him there. Now let's say the chuckle. He doesn't listen to you, and he has the object. Okay, now he has the object, and you go, oh gosh, you're going to say nothing. You are going to go to the pantry or reach into your pocket. You're going to pull out some really good dog treats and you're going to walk over to him and you are going to say out or drop it, I don't care what the queue is. And you're going to then take the

treat in front of his nose and let him smell it. Now, it's really important that the treat value is higher than what he has in his mouth. So if it's if it's bacon paper towel with bacon grease on it, that's a high value, I would say. So you're gonna need to come up with something really, really good. So you're going to say drop it. You're going to add the queue. You're going to say the queue. Now the que doesn't

mean anything to him but you. Then you're going to put a little treat in front of his nose, and when he drops it, you're going to do it in this particular order. You're going to give him the tree, and right after you're going to reach for the item, you're gonna pull it away from him, give him the treat. Good boy, good boy, and he eats the tree. Now you're gonna do something which is really radical, if it is not something that you really care about. You're going

to give him back the item. You're gonna go what. You're going to give him back the item, let him have it in his mouth. He's going to grab it, and then you're gonna repeat it. You're gonna say drop it or out or whatever your cue is. You're going to wag it in front of his nose. Let him smell it. He drops it, you're going to give him the retreat, grab the item and good boy, even jackpot a couple of treats. So now he's starting to realize

that giving up the item is a good thing. Many times good things happen, So now we are not creating tension on him holding the object. And this is.

value items. Will make a course of low value items around the training room and gradually increase the value so that it's a familiar command and it works even with desirable items.

place to stop. Stay tuned to Canine Master on pet Life Radio and we're going to be right back begging to hear more of your favorite show.

maybe food guarding, resource guarding? They have young kids, and so we talk a lot about the breeds that may be prone to this or more of a you know, a nurture type of environment that they came from, that we can predict if the dog will have resource guarding issues and how to modify them.

There's also dogs that have a propensity that I have seen in my practice. I know is things like Springer Spaniels or Cocker spaniels. I've seen situations where dogs like even Golden Retrievers that have incredibly high food drives. And if the wrong things are done, like I said, a hard correction during imprint, when the dog has the object or we build tension on the dog bole these can make the dog have or develop resource guarding or food guarden.

I want to talk about the dog that becomes aggressive when you go near his bowl or you're taking it something away from them, and you're going a lot of dogs will become that way, and that generally also is something that develops as the dog grows. There's a bad experience. So let's talk about one of the major behaviors that people train their dogs and many trainers across the United States and around the world teach this, and it actually helps contribute to food guarding. It's this I preparing my

dog's food. I then go walk over to my dog with a big tasty bowl of food, and I tell my dog to sit. So he sits, and now I say stay, and I place the food bowl down in front of the dog and I have him wait. This is a disaster. Everybody tries to look look at the control. I hel over my dog. But what you're doing is you're creating tension on that food bowl. You're creating that this is a huge resource, something that everybody wants, and

the dog is building tension on the food bawl. And by the time you say you know, okay or free dog or whatever your release queue is, and the dog runs over to the bowl and gets it. There is such high intensity around that bowl and if you go near it, he starts to grow. So food guarding is many times created that way. One of the worst things that we can do.

he's very nervous and tries to hide from you. This is a dog I probably would not start out feeding in the crate. I would actually put the dog bowl in a quiet part in the kitchen maybe, or wherever you're feeding the dog a quiet area. I would put the bowl into a corner in the room and place the bowl down there. And then what I would do is leave the dog alone in the very beginning, so

he's at least comfortable enough to eat. But then I would many times when the dog is eating, I might wander over to the ball, or wander over to the dog and drop in a piece of cheese or drop in a piece of something really high value into the bowl when he's eating, so that the dog starts to light the fact that you go near him when he's eating, because many times you drop in more great treats into

the bowl. Now, this is a great technique just in general to prevent sort of food guarding resource guarding on my food bowl. And I tell people to do this from the start. When you have a puppy, always do this exercise. Your dog is eating, grab a nice high value treat, wander over towards the dog, drop the food in there when he's eating, and continue on your way.

Do that several times so that you might even then reach down put in something really good, pick up the ball, reach down, pick up the ball, put a great value treat in there, and then place it back down. So he actually likes the fact that you go near his ball, pick up his bowl, and the dog will always think that you near the ball is a great thing. And then you want to what we call general this have your son or your child. Do this. Have somebody else

out in the house. Do this, so the dog starts to welcome people near his ball because good things happen.

to you in broad strokes. Here. When you have a dog that is hunkering down and he's really growling about around his food when you go near him, you need to do the following. First of all, you need to make sure that he's not protective of a particular bowl. You might try a new bowl that looks different, but not only that, that's when you start this technique of trying to fix it. But what you're going to do is you are going to create a sound that is

paired with a great treat. And I always say, you know, if you cook up liver, if you can go to Duchess and buy the liver sandwich without the bread and just ask them to cook it up, I'm looking for a real high resource item here. Liver is high, bacon is high. You know some of these, you can find a great treat that your dog absolutely adores. What you're going to do is I tell people to grab like a coffee can and put some high grade treats inside the coffee can. And this is not around the food bowl.

This is just to get the dog used to that. This sound means that I'm about to open up the can and give you a great treat. So you're gonna sit down next to your dog. You're gonna put five or six great treats into this coffee can, and you're going to go shake, shake, Shake, Shake, shake, and then you're gonna open up the lid of the coffee can and you're gonna give your dog a treat. And you're gonna do that throughout the week. Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake,

reach into the coffee can, give them a treat. And when the dog gets to hear you shaking the can, once your dog comes running to you. Now you know that the dog loves the sound of that shaking of the can because it means a great treat is coming. Okay, Now, what you're gonna do when your dog you got placed out his food bowl, he loves that sound and knows that a great treat is coming. What you're gonna do is is that you're going to put the food down. He's now eating his bowl, and you are going to

shake the can and walk towards the bowl. Now, what you want to see is is that the dog already has the knowing that that sound mean great treats are coming. When you shake the can, and the dog should stop eating and look up to you. You walk over to the ball. Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, as you're walking, keeping that sound going, take off the lid, drop in a treat and walk away, and you're going to do that for a good week to ten days he's eating.

In the midst of his eating, you're going to go shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, lift up the lid, reach into the can, drop a treat, drop a treat into the ball, and you're going to do that over and over and over again until he starts loving the fact that you walk over to his ball. The next step is you're going to reduce the amount of shakes, and that you may do over the next few weeks. But this allows the dog to actually like the fact that you go near his bowl when he's eating,

and it's a great transition. This technique has further things that we do, and I think, Jamie, we actually should almost do a whole complete radio show just on how to do this, and maybe maybe that could be part two to this. But that's a first step to getting you to be able to go near the ball when the dog is easy. And then what you may want to do is once the dog understands it and you've done that a few times, then have somebody else in

the household do that. If at any time the dog becomes very aggressive or you get worried, it's time to give somebody like us a call and we'll we'll do a lesson with you privately. But that's what you would start doing. Okay, I think that's it for today, Jamie. I think we've really hit a lot of the issues. Is there anything else that maybe you wanted to touch on? Yeah, if you.

would probably call a professional. So if my dog is growling, my dog is growling because it's a warning, it's a feeling, it's the dog's feeling. I am feeling nervous, worried, scared, and defensive. So in that case, I know my dog would never bite me, or my dog is never gone to that next step, then you could do the technique that I'm talking about. But if my dog is growling and I've tried the technique and he doesn't care about the shaking of the can as I approach him, then

I am probably gonna seek out a professional. Again, me back up. If he's growling, but there's no risk that I can continue with the program that I just describe. If he's growling and I've seen him get aggressive where he goes after me, that's when I call it professional. If I have a situation where the dog doesn't make us sound but he's tense, the same follows because if he's tense and you can see him all stiffen up over the bowl, that's a dog that is being protective

of what he has. Again, you can try the techniques if you feel that it's not going to escalate into a bite. But if you have any worries that it's going to escalate into the dog going after you, it's time to seek out a professional. Very helpful. All right, Well, I think that is it for today. I'm really happy Jamie that you joined us today again, and it's so great to have you on the show. Maybe we just make you permanent here because it's so oh, it's such

a great thing. And Jamie, you're so knowledgeable and really helpful. I think we'd love to hear your comments and you can also join the conversation. You can always email us at Chris at kanimaster dot com. And if you ever want to schedule any type of training or zoom lessons, you can reach out to Jamie at dog gonsmart dot com. That's j A I m Ee at dog do og gone g o n e smart dot com.

I guess that's it. BUYE for now, ye, and we'll see you next time on k I Master on pet Life Radio, where we will continue to help you master the relationship with your dog.