• If you're a past member of the board, but can't recall your password any more, you don't need to set up a new account (unless you wish to). As long as you recall your old login name, you can log in with that user name then select 'forgot password' and the board will email you at your registration email, to let you reset your password.

Food Guarding I Think??

Shivers

Well-known member
Could anyone offer some advice on this. I think Prince is 'food guarding' if thats the right name for it.
We have 3 dishes for the dogs, one for water and two for food. I have my own 2 dogs and a foster this week. For the past couple of weeks Prince has been growling and basically hogging the food even when there was one each. He would move back and forth between each dish and growl at Belle if she approached one. He wouldnt be aggressive or anything if I approached and stopped him.

He seems to be at it more this week, there is no shortage of food and their meals are always supervised. What I have been doing now is if he starts to growl and guard the food I have been putting him in the kitchen and feeding him separately. I dont know is this the right thing to do or would anybody have any advice on the best thing to do?
 
Thats a good approach. (y) It's wise to feed multiple dogs separately anyway as it is very common for this type of thing to start. My dogs are fed about 6 feet apart with a barrier between the boys and the girls. There are a couple of threads on food guarding where I posted helpful links right now at the top of the training section. It is wise to start working with Prince so that you can easily take and move his food around and return it. The links on food guarding explain how to address this common issue. The addition of a third dog is probably making him especially anxious about his food. Feeding in crates or a a separate room or behind a barrier of some sort all would help as a management technique, plus some training work. With kids around it is especially a good idea to work on some training. It's fun training -- basically you just swap something even nicer -- say a bit of chicken or cheese -- for the food, then return the food as well so he stops feeling something is going to take it from him permanently.
 
Thanks for that, ill do some reading. He's not overly aggressive or anything but it would just be better if he didnt do it anyway. Training going well so ill keep the faith :xfngr:
 
Back
Top