Food aggression

My dog is a wonderful animal, but we are having a big issue with his food. This is nothing new, but he's getting bigger and my 2 year old is getting curious, so the problems are growing.

We cannot be near him when he is eating. If we walk near, he freezes and growls. Too close and he snaps. He's bitten me before, but I was testing him and I take full responsibility for it. I can't guarantee that the food bowl will NEVER be accessible to my two year old, but if he got attacked I would never forgive myself. Rarely are my eyes not on the child (and the dog, he's usually underfoot) but accidents happen.

My dog will be 3 next spring. Is it too late to find a way to curb this instinct?

 

As far as I know, it is never too late to curb a dog's behavior. I've worked a 1 year old Lab through aggression towards humans. If you search this forum, you can read about what I went through with Misha after my Dad died. It might give you some hope that they really can change.

I saw Cesar Millan treat a elderly dog that had issues with this, so I think it can be done. Have you talked to your veterinarian about this to get ideas on how to change the behavior?

I've only had to deal with food aggression between dogs not between dogs and humans. I looked up some of Millan's tips. One thing he says you should start doing is making your dog wait to eat. By this, he means the dog has to sit throughout the process of filling the bowl until you give the command that he can eat. I do this with Misha. Mostly it teaches them who is boss. They learn they don't get to eat until you say so.

There are a couple of tips in number 1:
http://www.cesarsway.com/askthevet/dogwellness/Dog-Bites-101-Why-Bites-Happen

There is a little bit more here on what he calls the ritual of eating:
http://www.cesarsway.com/tips/basics/the-feeding-ritual-working

I checked one of the books I have by Brian Kilcommons. He also recommends feeding your dog by hand which would reinforce that you are the food person.

It's so important to work on this as your child is in that stage where little hands can get into places before you know it.

Hope this helps!

 

I had this problem with Homer. He is very little, so he isn't dangerous at all, but he can be pretty aggressive when it comes too food. From time to time I add a few treats to his bowl while he is eating. He already noticed, that it pays to let me near his bowl and he doesn't try to bite me anymore .

 

I think, as a temporary measure, keep your child separate from your dog unless you are able to pay full attention to supervising the two of them together. Better be safe than to be sorry. Then try out the tips given by the other members here. I am sure your dog can be trained.

 

Food aggression can be an awkward one to handle, but you're right that it needs attending to. For the time being, feed your dog away from everyone else, and start showing the dog that YOU'RE the boss, by hand feeding the animal. It's probably going to sound annoying and time consuming, but the dog needs to understand that he doesn't get to dictate when and how he eats. You can move back to feeding him from the bowl after he's learned his place, but taking the control away from him, and teaching him patience, is paramount.

You might want to invest in a set of gloves that are meant for training dogs with aggression issues, as they nip and go for you. Divide his food up into bags for the day, take him into a room where you're alone, and make him sit nicely, before you reward him with a nugget of his food. If he starts to snarl, bark, nip, or any other negative behaviour, pull back your hand, and make him wait to take it from you NICELY. Make sure he's sitting, and if he takes the food nicely, give him lots of praise, and go with the next nugget. If he jumps or displays any negative behaviour, pull back your hand again, and ignore him COMPLETELY, until he calms down and sits nicely. Once he's sat nicely for thirty seconds, reward him with a small amount of food. Repeat this process until his meal is gone, and don't give in.

You're going to need to do this for every meal, until he consistently sits and waits for each mouthful calmly and nicely. Once you've gotten to that stage, you can move back to feeding him from a bowl--but watch his behaviour. If he displays ANY negative behaviour, take the bowl away, put it somewhere he can't reach, and make him sit until he's calm. He may not show any bad behaviour, which is a plus, but if he does, take the food away and make him wait. It'll take more time and patience. Stand close to the bowl as he eats, walk around him and see what he does. Once he's learned to eat nicely, bring another person into the room, and see what happens. Any negative behaviour, repeat the cycle, remove and make him wait until he's calm. Remember to completely blank any negative behaviours, don't let him think he can sway you.

 

I will give hand feeding him a start. At least that is one thing I can do while I read about other ways to handle this.

We believe the issue stems from when he was a puppy, all the puppies were fed dry food mixed with water in a large bowl and they'd kind of duke it out to eat. I have pictures of Arthas IN the bowl, smushed against the glass side, munching away.

 

I have never had a problem with this with my dogs maybe because my dogs have always been feed together and when we eat. They have been hand fed and we can even reach in. And grab food from them without cause of alarm.

I seen where some people have suggested hand feeding to solve the problem. Of course you would start this and then maybe gradually have your little one try. I would tread softly though. Some dogs don't react with children like they would their masters. My cousin has a dog who is wonderful with adults or older children. Let a toddler enter the room and he completely changes. My cousin has had Mr. Al since he was a puppy. They have never understood why he behaves this way with toddlers. To their knowledge he has never been in contact with a toddler who may have accidentally harmed him. Dogs can be as choosy as humans.

Good luck with finding a solution that both you, your family and your family pet can live with.

 

Yeah, if dogs have had to battle for food, you'll see a lot of aggression forming.

One of my dogs would scoot off with food, and try to bury it. He wasn't aggressive, he would just try and hide it.

 

That reminds me of Benjamas, my Poodle. She is small and doesn't eat much but she is greedy. So she will sneak away some food and hide it under the blanket in her basket so that she can eat it later.

 

Interesting! I wonder if my dog would do that?

 

That's very interesting regarding the hand feeding. We never had any problems with the dogs being aggressive while eating, but now that I think about it we did feed them a lot by hand. We were constantly feeding them table food because they knew how to play up the cute factor big time.

The only issue we ever had was that our beagle was a huge pig. She would get so excited over food she would snap it out of your hand and sometimes accidentally nip you in the process. She wasn't angry at all, but her eyes would get as big as golf balls and her appetite would go through the roof.

 

One of my dogs has food aggression. Not with most foods just bones like steak bones or rib bones. Since I noticed it I have stopped offering her these foods most of the time.

 

I am usually the one feeding the dogs and I make sure they will not have such behavior while eating through fixing their food while they are eating and training that nothing should be wrong or nothing to be aggressive with when someone is near.
I also think that it was never too late especially with the help of experts in dog training. It might just take sometime or it is more difficult compared to younger dogs.

 

If you have never heard of Cesar Millan then please watch his shows. It's on National Geographic "The Dog Whisperer". You won't regret it. When I got my chow as a pup I was very concerned as there is so much negative press about the breed. I had a 5 year old and I was pregnant with our third child so you can imagine I was worrying myself sick. The pup was a gift that I could not say no to and my hubby really wanted the chow. She was forever nipping and biting when we got her but we tried the techniques we saw on the show and it works. Our chow is super behaved and has learned to stay away from our one year old and even if my child follows our chow. My only challenge is she loves our sofa and will sit on it when no one is looking.

 

Oh really? That's not uncommon. My Candy loves my bed but she knows I don't let her sleep in it. So she gets on my bed only when I am not around but I can always tell because she leaves behind some hair. Does your Chow Chow leave some hair on the sofa, too?

 

I don't think it should be that way though. Dogs are supposed to be loving and caring. You aren't supposed to prevent him from being near the family, vise versa.

It's clear that this dog needs to realize that he is the dog, not the owner of the house. Move his bowl into a different area. My dog is the same way with our latest puppy, but if she starts growling, I'll just shout "Hey!" and she typically stops. It doesn't help to get a newspaper on them. The newspaper sounds loud, but hardly hurts.

 

True, it doesn't really hurt but I have tried it with a piece of wet cloth and it works. What I did was to smack the dog with a piece of wet cloth when it's still a puppy. Not too hard but hard enough to make it yelp. Then as it grew up, it still remembered what happened and gave in whenever it saw a piece of wet cloth held in a threatening pose.

 

Personally, I wouldn't be able to smack my Homer with a piece of wet cloth, even if he was aggressive. I would never hit him. In my opinion giving your dog treats and touching his bowl at the same time works the best. Homer knows that he won't get the treat if he bites me.