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Growling Over Food... Otherwise Obedient

10K views 51 replies 30 participants last post by  cfree5119 
#1 ·
First dog I have trained so I figured why not start with a Chessie. Anyways, the obedience is solid but for whatever reason have a minor issue when it comes to food.

I make Rafa sit for a few minutes before being allowed to eat. I can pick the bowl up, no problem. He comes when called or sits when told to do so while eating as well. However, if i touch is tail, his leg, or really any part of his body while he is eating he growls. Rafa hasn't shown reactive behavior in any other setting except this one.

What is a good way to rectify the touching or approaching him while eating? Last thing I want to have is the neighbor's kid be bit in this situation. Thanks
 
#9 ·
I agree with tigerfan this is not a breed specific situation and should be addressed. Unacceptable behavior is unacceptable.
 
#10 ·
I suggest the OP contact someone who has been working with chessies all their lives - Sharon Potter would be a good place to start....



Darrin's method works and I highly recommend the OP utilize it.

Feed the pup in a crate where pup feels safe and confident no one is going to bother him while he eats. Developing a working/leading relationship can be done in other ways. IMO.
 
#11 ·
When my dogs are puppies I mess with them when they are eating. Pulling their food away or pulling them away from their food. Sometimes I will take their food away and feed them by hand a little at a time. My goal is to instill the idea that it's my food and I'm letting them eat it. Same as retrieving, it's my bird and they can get it and bring it to me when I say. It has worked for me but I'm sure the personality of the dogs has been a larger factor than anything else.

I also like to reinforce sit and stay when feeding a pup, I think it translates to steadiness as well. Set the food down and hold the pup a few feet away and don't let him go until he sits, it doesn't take long for a pup to sit and wait to be released. Always keeping it fun. My current "puppy" is nearly three and he still expects some kind of game before he eats.

Concerning the neighbors kids, always assume they will do everything imaginable to provoke a dog to bite.
 
#14 ·
Ditto, puppies should learn from the start that the food is yours to take and give. You should be able to touch any part of their body at anytime. I start touching them everywhere and mess with their food bowl a lot when they are young. I continue it periodically when they are grown.
 
#12 ·
The dog needs to understand that it gets food when you allow it.
Stand next to the dog and feed it on lead. While eating heel the dog away from the food. Pet the dog for a few minutes and when the dog behaves appropriately heel the dog back to food and allow it finish eating. Advance to touching the dog while eating on lead and if any aggression heel them away from the food and again when act right they can resume eating
They learn quickly to behave to get what they want.

Tim
 
#13 ·
Breed has nothing to do with it. It takes a dog all of maybe five minutes to eat. Let them eat in peace.

Control comes before permission to eat. Have the dog sit, you put the food bowl down, then give a release command. Then let the dog eat!

If you and I are having dinner and every few seconds you pull my plate away or stick your hand in my food, you're likely to get my fork stuck in the back of your hand.

There is absolutely no reason to insist on playing with or taking away a dog's food while they are trying to eat it. If kids are a concern, first of all teach your kids respectful behavior around animals, and second, feed the dog in a quiet spot away from everything so they can eat without being harassed.
 
#16 ·
Breed has nothing to do with it.

agree - however, the (mis)conceptions held by many are that 'you have to train a chessie with a 2x4' that you 'have to establish yourself as pack leader at all costs' with a chessie, and that 'chessies are stubborn dogs' - From a human perspective it is a 'breed thing' - from a dog perspective it is a dog thing... therefore when a human hears 'advice' from a 'chessie person', they are more likely to follow it, than if they hear the same advice from a lab person.

lab pups can have the same exact response to being 'messed with' while they eat.... any breed can.

I treat my labs the same way I treated my chessies.... They all sit and wait for release to be fed and then are left alone to eat in peace.
 
#19 · (Edited)
I can think of no good reason to mess with any dog while they're eating.

Up until very recently, we had multiple dogs, and they were fed in their crates. They had to go into their crates on their own in order to be fed, and stay there voluntarily until all were finished. We reinforced that by giving each a small milk bone after mealtime. Released them with " free dog". No drama at mealtime, just pleasure. -Paul
 
#22 ·
I can't believe what I'm reading!!
I've always been able to pet my dogs while they're eating. And they're made to sit and wait for the command that it's ok to eat.
Y'all must be breeding some off the wall dogs if you can't approach them while they're eating.
 
#25 ·
We always "messed" with puppies and very young dogs at feeding time. A very old school bird dog trainer down south would put dog food in his mouth and then feed it to new dogs at his kennel. A few kibbles not the whole bowl. He would also exhale into their nose and mouth very gently. Dogs would be given a bowl of food and a lot of petting. Half-way through he would distract the dog and then pick up the bowl. Give them a piece of the "mouth food" and then the bowl back.
If you think about a mother feeding young pups in the wild, this would probably mimic the millennia of pecking order around a fresh kill.
He did it so that he wouldn't have issues with dogs on the road at feeding time. He would feed 20-30 dogs on a chain gang stake out.
 
#31 ·
Good point!IMHO addressing this is more about changing the dog's attitude then their action. I understand their protective nature but they deed to develop the confidence that people around them are not a threat (even though we can be a nuisance to them at certain times).

Tim
 
#29 ·
If it is a pet dog it is going to be around food outside of feeding times.

I think the concern here is that the OP thinks the dog has food aggression. Sure, you can let the dog have its dinner in peace. But what is going to happen when someone especially a child is eating and the dog is about? Is the dog going to take the food from the child, possibly resulting in an injury to the child? How about if a morsel falls to the floor in the presence of this dog, what's it going to do if someone such as a child attempts to retrieve the morsel from the floor? What if another dog is about, and there is food on the table or that spills to the floor, will all hell break loose?
 
#30 ·
Valid concerns and all easily avoidable. We don't bother the dog when its eating, and it stays away from us when we're eating (crate or separate room). And if a toddler is wandering around dropping Cheerios, that's also easily rectified by keeping them separate. Common sense dictates that dogs and small children are always supervised and in a structured, controlled environment.

Food is not the only high value thing, but it is a basic survival thing to a dog's instinct. What about toys, bones, dead critters (just talked to someone today who had a hard time getting her pup to give up a dried up old frog carcass) birds? That's training, and is a different situation from food (at least in my world).

I won't tolerate a dog that growls at me when I walk past while it's eating. Tim Carrion's method with the leash works well for this in the house. In the kennel, a dog that growls at me at feeding time...or growls at another dog....gets the hose turned on and chased into their box. Once or twice and it's game over. But I also don't touch or otherwise interrupt their food while eating.

Most food aggression isn't actual aggression...it's protectiveness/resource guarding. Don't give the dog a reason to need to defend its food.
 
#32 ·
I don’t mess with my dogs when they are eating, that said they wouldn’t growl at me without a consequence. Who gives a crap what breed they are. I remember as a kid when I screwed up my mom said you did that twice. Your first and last time. That’s what it would be. Six years ago yesterday 9-11 my wife and I adopted a 2 year old chihuahua. Our dogs sleep with us and it was on my pillow and growled at me when I got into bed. Never again did she do that and she sleeps curled up at my side every night. Nip it in the bud if it happens again.
 
#35 · (Edited)
The bug was the smallest of 11 pups and has always growled when eating and when the bowl's picked up. Could always take food from it while he was eating or remove the whole bowl without getting snapped, just grumbled at. Tried all the old tricks to no avail and finally said "screw it". Now, at 4, he'll come find me and growl when he's done, so I'll go put the bowl up.

Well trained, I am. But I ain't scairt, has nothing to do with aggression or resource guarding, just habit.
 
#36 ·
In spite of what two chassis owners have said I would take the opportunity to teach this pup exactly where he stands in the pecking order, and make an early impression on him that he is nowhere near the top of the food chain
How many food aggressive dogs have you worked with and cured. I find your response archaic and irresponsible . Do you know what even drives this behavior. Less than 1 percent of the dogs out there can be treated the way you suggest. I have been working with aggressive dogs for 20 years and my experience is totally different than yours.
Pete
 
#37 · (Edited)
It actually IS a breed issue - in that it will come up in breeds that were at one time selectively bred to guard things more often than in others. Like anything though, it can come up in individuals at any time of any breed. A dog is pretty well hardwired to protect it's food. Most have a very low tendency to do this, created by selective breeding. As with anything genetic though, it can creep in despite human efforts to eliminate the proclivity.

That said - the therapy can be done a couple of ways but one has to remember a few things.

The dog probably isn't thinking anything of the "this is mine screw you human" sort - pecking order is a bullshit construct to think about. The behavior here is genetic at it's heart and likely wasn't addressed during the pup's most critical period of development - 5-8 weeks of age.

This is a matter of the dog actually coming down in his anxiety/energy level enough to think about his behavior. His instinct will always be to guard something that valuable - all dogs have this instinct to some level or another, otherwise, if they were wild they couldn't survive.

I haven't heard of Tim's method where you remove the dog from the food if he acts wonky - I like that one in combination with higher value items showing up when human's approach.

Why do I say that?

Because it makes sense within the framework of the operant conditioning model. The dog seeks comfort - relief of his hunger pangs. He gets that by eating. Threats to that comfort, with some dogs are handled with aggression.

Pup needs two things to happen - one is that he needs, in the very short term to realize that he's only going to eat with humans nearby and that they aren't a threat, but rather part of the context of eating. Second - we need to deal with the involuntary adrenaline spike by re-framing the dog's expectation of what will happen when a human approaches.

I like the combination of adding better things and removing the possibility of eating because it utilizes 2 of the 4 operant conditioning quadrants vs. only 1.

A lot of you will think I'm nuts for thinking this deeply about the subject. That I'm being overly analytical and a pansy for not just jumping on the dog and punishing him to "put him in his place".

Well, there's a reason for that called bully breeds, a second one called mastiffs, a third called German Shepherd dogs.

A Chessie can be a formidable adversary and I'm sure there are examples of dogs that ramp so high in their rage/aggression that they are unstoppable. I haven't personally seen one that would kill a person but I have most certainly seen other breeds that can fly into an uncontrollable rage over food to the point of EXTREME danger.

If practical, I love Tim's approach with addition of other positives when people approach.

I'd do it with the dog inside a kennel run and a long line threaded through the fence with some dogs, initially. You might find some examples where getting within 6' causes them to launch at you, so the exercise might not be practical initially without a physical barrier between dog and trainer.

Also, I don't like to get bitten.
 
#40 ·
Darrin
Splitting hairs is a great way to figure out difficult dog problems. As I read through the treads I still am amazed that people are still buying in to fables and hype. If it weren't so difficult to log in to rtf and if it wouldn't kick me off after 2 minutes of typing I would try to give more of my experience about this subject,,,but I don't think it would do any good. People are set in their way of thinking despite what the facts or proofs are.

Pete
 
#41 ·
Tim used a great word. "Threatened" Think about that word and what it represents in the dog world. What drive does it correspond with. Can you threaten a dominant dog? . Dominant behaviors do not equal dominant dogs which are extremely rare. Darrin makes great suggestions about this subject.
Pete
 
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