Resource Guarding and Dog Training

0:00If your dog growls at you over a food bowl and your first instinct is to quote unquote show them whose boss you have got to stop that right now. That reaction, it's one of the fastest ways you can create a dog who may be perfectly comfortable with you to bite. And I might ruffle feathers saying this, but resource guarding is not about dominance. It's not your dog trying to control the household and it's definitely not fixed by taking the item away just to prove a point. Hello and welcome to one minute dog training tips on dog works radio. Today we're talking resource guarding myths and tips. I'm going to go over why you might be misunderstanding this behavior resource guarding is rooted in insecurity and fear of loss. In the wild, access to food and resources is survival. If a dog feels like something valuable might disappear, they protect it. That protection can look subtle at first, stiffening,

1:00hovering, eating faster, presenting a whale eye, and freezing. If those signals are ignored, it can escalate to growling, snapping, and biting. So here's myth number one. If I punish the growl, the behavior is going to stop. No, not exactly. If you punish the growl, you're going to end up suppressing a warning. The discomfort is still going to be there. You've just removed step one, making it easier and a faster reaction for your dog to escalate into biting. That's how we end up hearing people say, my dog bit me out of nowhere. Myth number two, I should stick my hand in the food bowl. So my dog just gets used to it. Also, no, constantly reaching into your dog's food bowl can actually create a guarding reaction because you're teaching them that humans approaching means interruption or loss. So instead, let's try a few things. First, I want to talk about management. If your dog guards high-value chews, don't leave them scattered around.

2:04Structured feeding routines inside their crate with clear boundaries and make sure that you're picking up items when the training is not happening. Prevent rehearsal of that behavior. Second, start to teach a trade game, approach from a safe distance, toss something higher value than what they have, then walk away. Your building and association of people coming near my stuff makes better stuff appear. Over time, you can gradually decrease distance, but only go at the dog's pace. Third, you have to build impulse control outside of the guarding context. Work on sit and wait before giving a meal. Make sure your dog knows what a threshold boundary is. Are they allowed to go through the door without being released? Be sure that they understand having a leash put on them happens when they're calm. The more clarity and structure your dog has in daily life and the more rewards it's given when presenting calm behavior, the less anxiety they will feel about life

3:10in general, but also about losing their resources. Fourth, you must watch body language. Lip lifting, freezing, meaning stiff body language. A hard stair where your dog is not blinking. Extremely quick consumption, growling as they're actively eating can all be early warning signs. You have to respect them, not challenge them, but also don't necessarily accept defeat. If very early on your dog is growling when you're giving it its food, you need to change the way you're doing meal times immediately. And instead of allowing them to dive right in and eat within five seconds, you need to feed them a few handfuls that you hold from the bowl and give directly to them. Once you feel like they've been appropriately calm while eating from your hand, then they can have the food bowl. Fifth, you need to never corner or physically confront a dog who is guarding. That includes

4:12doing alpha roll moves, forcing a removal of an item or intimidation. Any of those overly dominant approaches may suppress a behavior temporarily, but it can increase stress and really damages the trust you have with your dog. Resource guarding can extend beyond food. Keep that in mind. Dogs can guard anything that they view as theirs. Beds, spaces, other dogs, people. If your dog growls when someone approaches you, that can still be considered resource guarding and it needs structured training and guidance, not punishment. If the guarding involves children multiple dogs or has escalated to biting, this is when you bring in qualified trainers immediately. The earlier you work on resource guarding, the quicker and easier it is for the rest of your dog's life. The goal is not to win the items. The goal is not for you to own everything in existence for your

5:13dog. The goal is to build security and clarity so your dog doesn't feel the need to guard things in the first place. Remember to think back to the fact that your dog's natural instinct is survival. And so if they have any kind of thought process that something will be taken away from them, they are going to guard it. When your dog growls at you, they're communicating. When their body language changes, that's communication. You have to learn to listen to it. You have to be able to train through it. You can't just silence your dog trying to communicate with you. For more educational tips on resource guarding, check out articles on AlaskaDogworks.com. And if you're dealing with resource guarding in your home, reach out to our team or share this episode with a friend. And until next time, Happy