Agression Over Wet Food

[angel101798]

We have a 7 mth old Belgian Malinois and we've recently (as in today) added wet food to her diet.  Ever since we got her four months ago I've made a point of petting her, messing with her muzzle, paws and food while she was eating.  I've had my children (ages 4 & 9) and husband do the same thing with no problems.  In fact, she would often stop eating just to kiss the person giving her attention, but this was always with dry food.  This morning while feeding her breakfast with the wet food added to her dry I started petting her as usual and she growled!  She gave me "that look" out of the corner of her eye with hair up on end.  I immediately took the food away and pretended to eat it myself.  She sat quietly while I did this and I gave the food back to her.  She growled again when I started petting her.  We went through this routine several times until she got to the point she showed no agression, although she was wary of my presence.  This is a huge concern because of my children.  I don't want to take the wet food away from her, and I'm reluctant to relegate her to her crate for meals.  But of course, my family's safety comes first.  The kids give her treats and play with her toys all the time, she has never been agressive toward anyone in any way until now unless you count mouthing (which we're working on).  If anything, she's overly friendly.  This is a side of her I've never seen before and it's very unnerving.  Please help, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  Sorry this was so long.

[kathryn]

Let me start off with a welcome to the board and my pups are listed below.

Kaila is a resource guarder.  I say is because to me it's a continuous training thing here.  She is also the head dog of the pack so I have to really watch her for the difference between alpha and resource guarding.  She used to resource guard the food bowl from the cats.  Instead of taking the bowl away from her, I would put her in a sit stay or a down stay for a few minutes.  The "leave it" command has been invaluable in even making her back off her food.  Also I trained the cats to leave her food bowl alone.  She will allow the other dogs to share a bowl with her even though they all have their own bowls.  She is definitely a pleaser so just the sound of a correction in my voice will stop her also. 

I know people have had really good luck in swapping out for a higher value item when you take the food away.  I've always been of the opinion that if you just take the food away that the aggression can esclate.  Have you tried other toppings on her food other than the wet food?  I was just thinking that if you make it a regular thing then she will be less likely to resource guard also.  I'm thinking that if you back off on the amount of wet food to dry and slowly add the wet in as a treat each time you pet her while she's eating and she doesn't growl that she should get the message that yummy wet food happens when I behave. 

Sorry this is so long and I hope it helps.  I'm also sorry that I'm rambling alot today.  I'm usually not this bad.  I would love to see pics of your girl.

Kat 

[angel101798]

Kat-

Thank you for your suggestions.  We've been topping her dry food with the Iams Gravy to get her to eat, but she dosen't seem to like it enough to stay put for a whole meal.  She'll nibble then go do something else.  We've been trying to get her to eat at mealtimes to create a predictable potty schedule (she's only been housebroken for about a month).  I like your idea of giving her the wet food as a treat while she's eating.  I was told to take her food away to show her that I'm the leader, but if it will only make matters worse, I won't do that anymore. 

Cheyenne's our first Malinois.  I've had big, dominate dogs my whole life, but she's been the most exuberant and easiest to train.  We don't have any other dogs, just a cat.  The cat's not too happy with her and takes every opportunity to drive Cheyenne crazy.  It's pretty funny actually as she just wants to play.  Believe me, your post was not too long, this breed is unlike any other and finding another Malimom is very exciting!   As soon as I have pics I'll post them.  Thanks again for your help. 

[angel101798]

We feed her Iams Smart Puppy.  She seems to like it, but she just nibbles sporadically.  It takes all day to get her to eat just one cup when she should be eating more.  When we first got her she was eating another type of dry food and did the same thing.  We added the gravy as a treat and she seemed to like it better, but would still walk away.  We decided to add wet food to give her diet more variety and entice her to stay put for meals.  Well, the stay put part worked.   

[angel101798]

I checked out Holly's post; your suggestions and her post were very informative.  I'll try changing her food and see if she likes it better.  Although, I would still like to include wet food in her diet.  Thank you for your help. 

[Duramax]

welcome to the board! Im Christina mother to two danes and a labx in my signature.

the food agression as you already know needs to be stopped emediately, her instinct is to growl to tell you to back of, so i suggest use reverse psychology and every time she growls move in, she'll know if you are nervous or anxious and it'll make her more comfortable with growling, so dont. She'll learn that if you growl your food disappears! better not do that again! also i would start making her earn her food before every meal if you switch like previously suggested to a food she realy likes it may realy motivate her to please you. and again, she wont want to be rude to you because then the nummies disappear!

[Duramax]

i also wanted to add that there are other signs of a dog being nervous eating when people approach other than growling/nipping, these are : speeding up while eating (like they are trying to gulp down their food when you are near) stopping eating when you approach, stiffening up, holding their breath, and of course always watch the tail, watch and practice your training with her even if she's only doing something minor like stiffening, it still means she's uncumfortable eating around you. good luck and be persistant!

[angel101798]

Christina-
Thanks for the reply.  I never noticed any of the behaviors you described until yesterday when I added the wet food.  Although now I'm confused.  When I feed her out of the bowl, should I remove it when she starts growling or give her the Leave It command? 

When we first got her I started training her immediately and I used her dry kibble as the reward.  Because I was training her so much, we cut back on how much she was getting in her bowl.  So basically, most of her food was coming from my hand directly.  Which might explain why she won't stay put for a meal.  This may sound gross, but last night I mixed more dry food with less wet and rolled it into small balls that I fed her manually.  The change was unbelivable!  She was happy and wagging her tail while I fed her.  I tried to get her to eat out of the bowl while I was holding it or putting it at my feet and she just sat there with her doggy grin looking at me.  I can't do that three times a day, plus if you've ever handled wet food, it's very sticky .  So now it seems I have two problems: getting her to eat out of her bowl and stopping her food agression over the bowl. 

[navarre1316]

I had this problem with Navarre too.  But I don't have any kids to worry about!  I would also take his bowl away, make him eat out of my hand or make him eat with the bowl in my lap.  He didn't like the bowl in the lap thing either because I would be over him so, I was in a dominant position.  If he didn't eat, he didn't eat.  The bowl didn't go back on the floor.  When he would eat out of the bowl I would then put my hand in the bowl while he ate.  Again, he didn't like that either but he eventually got over that and would eat.  He did get over his food aggression, I think there's a pic of him and my cat Stone trying to steal a bite of his food which would have never happened earlier!

The weather plays a big part in a dogs eating habits too.  There are days when both my dogs will barely touch their food and then they will lick the bowls clean the next.  You may have a dog who doesn't eat every morsel and there's nothing wrong with that!  Try both methods with her, the leave it is good for many things, not just food!  One way may work for her rather than another or you may find something totally different!!  Good luck and Welcome

Edited to add:  I was just looking up resource guarding (googled it) and some of the sites cover food issues.  You might want to read some too!!

[kathryn]

I would definitely use whatever method works for you.  The mixing wet and rolling into a meatball with the dry food is a great idea.  If it works for you go with it. 

I feed Innova Evo dry and mix in Merrick wet food for my dogs.  I started adding wet food in because I couldn't keep weight on Kaila or Cinder.  But Kaila was worse because of her spay incontinence meds.  Anyway, I like mixing the wet with the dry for them.  I use different flavors so that they don't get bored with their foods.  I just tried the Innova wet last night and they loved it.  So I may switch to the Innova wet instead of Merrick or I may just use both kinds. 

If she is a little iffy on eating out of the bowl while it's sitting in your lap maybe place some of her food on a plate.  She might think she is getting something super great like people food from it and scarf it up.  She may also just need to drop down to two feeds a day.  Do you feed a cup at each feed?  Mine are getting 1 1/2cups dry food a piece and the can is split between all 4 of them.  I just bumped them up from 1 cup each. 

Kat

[angel101798]

You may be right about the weather thing.  We've been getting a lot of thunder storms in our area.  She doesn't  mind loud noise, 4th of July was nothing to her, she just wanted to check everything out.  But the pressure change may be affecting her appetite and making her edgy.  She grumbled at me in bed when I shifted my feet and moved to the floor. 

She did really well last night for her dinner.  I combined feeding her manually and dropping some wet food on her dry.  She eats out of an elevated bowl and I sat next to her.  At one point she climbed into my lap (which is quite a sight with her long legs!) giving me kisses while I fed her.  I was feeding her 3 cups a day of the Iams, but cut back to 1 1/2 when I started adding wet food.  I think I'm going to switch her food over to Innova though.  I checked our their website and I liked how they listed and described each ingredient.  Between the pet food recall and finding a food that's healthy, it's been easier feeding my kids than Cheyenne!