Ever had a dog who growls, snarls and bares its teeth and won't give you *his/her bone, chew or toy if you try to take it from them? Or one who gets uncomfortable or growls if you get close to him/her when he's or she is eating their dog food? Or snaps at you if he's/she's on the sofa and you want him/her off? Or lifts his/her lip in a snarl if your friend tries to get close to you?
Answer yes to any of the above, and you've successfully diagnosed your dog as having a guarding issue. The catch-all, technical term is "resource-guarding," and can include guarding of dog food bowls (or food), place (dog crate, dog bed, sofa, etc.) items (rawhide, bones, balls, tissues, and anything else) and less commonly, people.(* Im being politically correct in case some snowflake accuses me of being sexist)!!!
Resource-guarding simply means that a dog gets uncomfortable when we (or other humans) are around him when he has "his stuff." He's nervous that we're going to take it away, so he/she tries to warn us off in a variety of ways, ranging from simply consuming his/her food faster, to an all-out bite.
During resource-guarding, dogs exhibit signs of ritualized aggression. That is, they have a fairly explicit range of warnings - accelerated eating, cessation of eating or "freezing up," glassy/hard eyes, growling, lip lifting, snapping, biting - that they'll run through to get a competitor (YOU!) to back away from what they have. They're nervous that you're there and don't want to share.
Trainers and behaviorists take these warnings and apply a rating scale, ranging from reactions that pose no risk to humans to those that are extremely serious. A rough eight-level guide is useful for owners and trainers to assess the situation but some dogs don't follow such a neat pattern. A dog can move from a growl to a serious bite in a matter of seconds and this can be a danger to smaller dogs or children who can get bitten badly.
Trainers often hear the cry, "he/she bit without warning!" More often than not, there was a warning, somewhere, sometime - you just missed it.
What should you do about this behaviour? First off, the overall idea is to approach *him/her while he has the valuable object and to give him/her good things. So offer a treat and while his/her attention is distracted, you can take away the thing that he was so fiercely guarding. The most important thing is not to punish the dog for growling as he/she was warning you. If you punish them, they stop warning you and go straight for the attack.
Trivia.............
January. The month equivalent of the toffee at the bottom of the Quality Street tin. Slightly too long, nobody's favourite and all those bills thudding onto the doormat makes you feel a bit sick after Christmas. Nobody needs January blues in their life Now that we've got Christmas and New Year out of the way, you can pack up the decorations that always seem to look tatty on the 26th December, toss out the shedding tree, stop your drinking and throw away the green turkey bits and ham, and bundle up the cards and drop them into the bins at Boots, Tesco and Sainsburys stores. It all goes to charity. Its time to embrace 2018, be optimistic and now look forward to good things.
Here's a nice heart warming video to start off the New Year.
Until the next blog, have a good January and do some good deeds for family, friends and strangers.
Dawn ("")
