Food Aggressive Dog - Page 1

I am sure this topic has been covered 1000 times on this forum but I wanted to ask again. I did a search and didn't really find one that was comparable to my dog. Just wanted to say that to get it out of the way...


Anyway, I have a 2.5 year old GSD who has been food aggressive around people and other dogs since the day I brought her home at 8 weeks old. I contacted a trainer when she was 8 weeks old to see what I should do about this since I have never had a dog that was food aggressive. The trainer advised to "correct" the dog and do not allow her to eat until she is no longer growling. Needless to say this approach hasn't worked. I have also tried hand feeding her every meal (did this for about a week) and it didn't help. Maybe I didn't do it for long enough... not sure how long it should take?? She has gotten better and has never bitten anyone but I really don't like her growling at anyone for any reason. Does anyone have any REAL experience with this that has actually worked. If you do could you please include what behavior your dog was exhibiting and how it improved and what the time line was. Please provide timelines for how long training like this should take. Will she ever be 100% better? I also have small kids so if I need to do training with her and them also please let me know. Any advice would be appreciated.

I did the hand feeding with a dog once. Didn't work the first time. had to start and stop a couple times before it worked. Your dog is 2.5 yrs. it's well ingrained in her now. I have a dog now that is food aggresive hand feeding hasn't worked. Good thing he doesn't try to bite he just growls when touched doesn't steal other dogs food either. Try other forums even under other breeds. Good luck. 

are you firm with her , if she see herself as the boss she will never submit ,till you become the boss , no matter how much you try to  feed her,you will need to be very firm with her, when you try to correct. never show any fear as this will show weakness, i dont have much experience with this type of dog as all my dogs know i am boss. and i even had one from germany i got at 6 years, that was not good with females , well now she is great with my other female, so yes you can  teach a old dog new tricks no matter the age. its been 1 1/2 years later.

Maybe you should ask the GSD specific forum...

Yes, I am very firm with her. The problem is the firmer I get with her (which is what I was told to do by a trainer) the worse she gets. I have had it escalate way too far and end up pinning her until she submits. Although this may be the way to go with other situations I really think this isn't the way to go with food aggression. It has gotten a little better... we have gone from her growling at every meal to her growling about every third meal. I NEVER let the growling go. Sometimes all it takes is a light correction but about once a week we get into a full on battle. Outside of the food aggression she does test the limits on occasion (like not waiting when I open the door) however, when I correct her she falls in line. She isn't allowed on the couch, in our bed, and she eats last. I have always made her "work" for what she wants. If she wants inside she must sit and wait patiently until I say she can be let inside. On a walk she is always at a heal. When we go inside I am the first through the door then she is invited in. I am extremely firm with her and the rules in my house are clear. She has always been an alpha type dog and pushed and tested limits whenever possible so I have had to be very very clear and firm with her from day one. This is why I am hoping someone who has had real hands on experience with correcting food aggression will chime in. I will post on the GSD forum as well...

The more you push her, the more she's going to feel she HAS to guard her food.  And right up front, you should be warned--NEVER trust her around food and kids.  This isn't an indictment of her OR you OR your kids, it's just a basic fact: it simply isn't worth risking having her revert back to the aggression just ONCE, no matter how much better she gets, because if she nails a kid and you take him/her to the emergency room, you can pretty much figure you've signed your dog's death certificate (especially if it's not your kid she gets).

You'd need to do the hand-feeding for quite a long time before you're going to see improvement, and when I say 'quite a long time', I mean MONTHS at the very LEAST.  ANYTHING she gets to eat would need to be given to her out of your hand.  A better option may be to feed her using her bowl, but with you dropping a few pieces of food in at a time, instead of trying to hand feed her, and anything she gets to eat HAS to be eaten from the bowl--nothing's fed directly from hand to her mouth. That's going to be hard to control, though, since you're not the only person in the equation, so you can't ensure that everyone does this...especially children.  In truth, for the time being, it would really be best if you created a setting where she was out of the line of traffic in the household and could feel protected -- feeding her in a crate, if she's used to one, would probably make her less anxious, especially if you can make it 'cave-like' by covering it on the top and three out of the four sides.  If she's not used to being crated, however, this might turn into another conflict situation, and you don't need that right now.

How is she about things other than food--toys, bones, stuff she picks up that she's not supposed to have?  Does she guard those as well, or can you easily and readily get her to either give them to you, let you take them from her mouth, or get her to drop it and leave it?  If the ONLY thing she guards is her food, you're in better shape...if she guards *anything* that she values, it's gonna be a lot of work.  Either way, given that you've got children in the house, that means you've also got other people's kids coming in, too...and under these circumstances, I really don't think getting advice off the Web is going to be sufficient.  I've worked with a lot of food aggressive dogs over the years, but without being able to see the dog first-hand and see what her threshholds are and such, it's too great a risk to try and work through this problem 'virtually'.

You really need to work with either a board-certified behaviorist, or a trainer who is extremely experienced in working with this particular problem using NO physical corrections what so ever.  This is the sort of problem that any degree of physical correction is only going to escalate the situation...it calls for the aid of someone who can actually assess the dog *in person*, and see what the dog's body language is indicating when she's eating, when she's stressed, and when she's relaxed.  Where in general are you located?  A number of the vet schools now have board-certified veterinary behaviorists or certified applied behaviorists on staff now, and they offer consults and work with the owners to condition the dog out of the behavior. 

BTW, this isn't a breed-specific issue, either--anything from a Chihuahua to a Mastiff to a Mix can develop this problem, so I'm not sure why Kevlar thought it ought to be posted on the GSD-specific forum. 

This behavior was learned probably from the feeding habits of the breeder and competition from litter mates.
I would teach children and others to simply stay away during feeding.
I don't believe you can cure this personally.
If a dog bites the hand that feeds it especially mine I would beat the dog within an inch of it's life but that's just me.
If the dog bites one of these so called behaviorists, offer it a desert.
Best advice, learn to live with it and take the necessary precautions.

Moons.

Leave the Poor dog ALONE when it eats!!

Do you like someone messing with you, Your food, hand feeding You??  When You eat????

Obviously, you should teach your children to leave a dog alone when they are eating.

Pretty simple, problem solved. 

Oh, & your remark that he/she doesn't steal other dog's food = DA
Don't feed dogs together!!!!!!!!!!!

If your can not separate, & feed dog's seperately, or leave them alone when eating ...
Rehome this poor dog.  You have created this problem, by not leaving the dog alone when it eats.

What you have been doing is so Wrong, pinning this poor dog, corrections =
No Alpha Pack Leader Pins, let alone messes, with a fellow pack member when eating.
Your dog views you as so unfair, rehoming sounds more & more like the better answer for this poor dog.

Apparently you didn't notice that there first two posts are from two different people. 

And it's all well and good to say, 'teach your children...' blah-blah-blah, but the fact is that if a dog can't be approached while it's eating something without a fear of the dog becoming aggressive, the dog becomes a liability to have in a home.  There is nothing wrong with using positive, non-compulsive methods to recondition the dog's response to someone coming near when it's eating.

Ya, poor dog my arse.