I have trained my dog to accept my hands in his mouth to take things away from him on a continuous basis since I brought him home 2 months ago. He has been treated to do this. I live in a house where we heat with a wood stove in the living room. This means that there are little pieces of wood that he can ingest everywhere, no matter how conscientiously I try to keep the pieces from showing up. Since I do not want surgery for this, I am constantly taking things out of his mouth, and he fully accepts this. Most times I am trading for a treat, but its been so constant that we are now on a random reinforcement schedule for getting treats for removing stuff from his mouth(he gets a treatment sometimes, but not all the time). While I suppose that it is possible that a puppy could start guarding stuff, this is unlikely in my setting. Besides, he gets all his food directly out of my hand from the bowl. He sits, he waits. I take some out of the bowl, he eats it out of my hand. He sits, he waits, I get another small handful and he eats it out of my hand. This goes on until its all gone. If you want to be able to take stuff out of the puppy's mouth with no problems then you have to train the puppy from the beginning that having your hands in his mouth is A-OK. HE IS FULLY USED TO THIS, AND EVEN HAVING MY FINGERS DOWN HIS THROAT TO GET SOME DANGEROUS PIECE OF SOMETHING bothers him not in the least. He has a very very extremely soft mouth, and fully accepts having mine or my wife's hands in his mouth to take something out or to put something in. In my case taking something out of his mouth is a rewarding circumstance because sometimes he even gets a treat. If people have not so trained their dog, then I figure that it is probably right about the hoarding. It all depends on how you train the dog.
When you offer a reward for something, eventually you move from every day/every time, to a random reinforcement schedule. This causes the person/dog/porpoise to try hard to do the activity to get the reward, and gradually takes the "Bribe" away. Eventually you only offer the "bribe" on rare occasions. But if the person/dog/porpoise/etc. suddenly loses the skill, then you can go back to a continuous reinforcement schedule to get on track again. My dog has suddenly, probably due to stress, has lost his peeing holding and is peeing in the house. So now he goes back to a continuous reinforcement, and taking him out every hour. Its not a bribe. its the conscientious use of behavior modification. My sister when she was 7 behavior modded my father to stop smoking a pipe after dinner, by not getting up on his lap when he had the pipe. Since that was the only time he smoked, he gradually stopped smoking altogether, because he liked having his daughter on his lap more than he liked smoking a pipe. My father didn't even know this was happening, and at age 7, neither did my sister.
I think you are confusing the comment I made about the difference between rewarding and bribery. "Trading for a treat" where the dog knows there is a trade happening is a bribe and always will be. The dog sees the treat and decides whether or not it is worth giving the object up for it. A reward is not shown to the dog in advance, so there is no bribe. It is something given as payment for a job well done on whatever schedule is fit.
