Food agression...

[Gevaudan_Jo]

hi all, i have a quick question on food agression. zero is a little snappy, if another dog trys to eat out of his bowl while hes eating, i can understand that. but now, Jigsaw, our 7 month puppy, is showing agressivness towards food.  I feed Jigsaw in her crate, but i feed zero in the living room. She will run to zeros bowl when i fill it before bed *I usually fill it when they are outside*. and she will snack on his food, and when she is done she will walk away, but when zero heads towards his bowl, she growls and snapps at him.i went to pull zero away, and i told her NO and she growled at me. Than, she went to walk away again and pass zero, and they pinned eachother growling. NO biting or snapping, just lots of growling. so, i now know not to feed zero while jigs is around, but is there anything i can do to try to break this???
thnx

[Duramax]

I feed mine in opposite ends of the kitchen, and they are not allowed, under any circumstances to eat out of any bowl other than their own. If they try and sneak into another bowl and they get caught, the sqirt bottle goes into action. Strider has started resource guarding and I am having fits with him growling. I am going to have to start NILFing him.
Stella

'what's NILFing? (i hope that's not a stupid question)

[patrick]

Nothing in life is free- means the dog needs to work for EVERY treat, food, priviliges.  Example if you wanted to give the dog a biscuit he would first have to sit and wait in order to get it.  It is great for obedience and also to establish the human as the leader of the pack

[Duramax]

ok well im familiar with the tecnique, i like it. works very well with max

[Gevaudan_Jo]

well it would be great, if only jigsaw did tricks. she doesnt do "sits" or "downs" or stuff because she is trained to show... so stacking only 

[ptkennel]

Our show dogs know how to stack and Go "down" and "sit" and "stay".  I was told to try these other methods of training after i taught her to stack or stand.  That the dogs will be able to tell the difference.  Different words with every command.  Like when you want them to lay down say down, when you want them to get off you when they jump up say off.  So they know what each things means.  Dogs are smart, they will figure it out.  Of course my dogs aren't perfect and they don't do exactly what I want always.  If food is there though look out, I have puppets.
And I have talked to a lot of show people and some have said that they have trained there dogs for obedience even before they showed in conformation, and that is a lot of sit and stay  as apposed to the stand or stack position.
JMHO

[Gevaudan_Jo]

we tried to show train zero after basic obdediance and nothing clicked, so we just went the other method with jigsaw... i know, its always different with other breeds and other dogs, but its just what we found effective.

[ptkennel]

He is still a baby too, maybe it just will take a little time.
Joy is 14 months now and she isn't perfect.  She loves to stack in the ring but when I want her to at home she is a butthead.  But as soon as food comes out its down and she is down before I can say it.  I feed them all seperately in there crates to avoid stealing and growling.  Haven't had any porblems, yet....

[RacheH]

Hey, well so far Beau and Rocky haven't had any food issues. We do the same as you, feed them both in separate ends of our terrace (summer) and/or corridor (winter). Rocky does tend to help himselve to a bit of Beaus food but he's a picky eater and will only nibble. Beau always has leftovers in his bowl.

Doggie-Doggie and Sparky, on the other hand, do have quite some issues. We keep Rocky and Beau separated from Doggie and Sparky because they hate each other and Rocky being quite a hefty dog weighing in at about 65kgs would really hurt the other two if they should ever fight...(Surprisingly he accepted Beau quite happily, perhaps because he was injured and very young.. who knows?). Anyway, Doggie, being an ex-stray dog always seems to be afraid that food will one day not be readily available for him anymore.. And so he's extremely possessive over his plate when it comes to other dogs or animals (but not us, i think he's acknowledged that Rachel/Mom + Dog bowl = Food). So we feed sparky in one end of the back yard and doggie in the kitchen...

With Rocky and Beau we also make them sit and wait before they can dig in...And Beau we're teaching to actually eat IN his plate and not grab bits of food and run around in the garden with it!

Hope this helps...

Rache.
xxx

[Imani's Mom]

Might want to try this idea- get a bunch (like a dozen or more. NO LESS) food bowls, and a big bag of dog food. While your dogs are outside, fill all the bowls and place them all around the house, the more places, the better. Then let the dogs in and stand back. The idea behind this is that there are so many bowls, neither dog can guard all of them, and eventually realizes there is no point to trying.