Anyone have any experience modifying the type of behavior? My 8.5 month old lab has been suspended from doggie daycare for snapping at other dogs that tried to drink out of the same water bowl he was drinking out of. We don't have another dog so not sure how we would work on this. He's got other resource guarding issues (food, his resting spot) and a behaviorist is coming in about 2 weeks to start working with him/us. So hopefully that will help with the human guarding. I just worry without having another dog to train with, the poor guy will never be allowed back even if he starts being better with humans. We've had him since he was 8 weeks. He has seen the vet, was prescribed fluoxetine and has been on that for 2.5 months (doesn't seem to be working), and just started taking thyroxine for low thyroid levels (has only been 2.5 weeks).
Hi @Malgagnon Resource guarding can have a strong genetic basis. In day care he has ben placed in an environment in which he believes he has to be prepared to fight to possess certain objects. At day care there is a good deal of overt competition for resources. He seems to have a history in which the behaviour at issue has been reinforced. With resource guarding, most solutions involve management and prevention. Dogs, for example, are not permitted to eat from the same bowl. Once a dog has finished eating he is taken or directed from the area in which the food has been put down. Dogs who guard say your lounge suite are not permitted to get up on the furniture. I can see how a dog behaviourist might help to reinforce desirable behaviours (if the the dog is allowed up on the furniture, then you teach on and off the furniture). I can't see how you are going to reinforce desirable behaviour in your case. Even if you had another dog to train with, there is no expectation that any modification won at home would generalise to day care. Are the supervisors at day care going to allow you to proof the desirable behaviour? And more importantly, i don't believe they can nor will they be prepared to manage the triggers--the other dogs. I believe you will have to think about how you provide environmental enrichment at home, because I don't think day care is going to be an option in the future. Sorry for the poor response. I am happy to be proven wrong. I will be very interested to learn of the solutions your dog behaviourist puts forward.
Get a copy of “MINE” by Jean Donaldson. If nothing else it will educate you on resource guarding and provide you with some do and donts until you can get the behaviourist in to assess the severity. In the mean time, prevent any scenario that would trigger the guarding and further engrain the behaviour. If you are comfortable, the book offers an in depth regime to cure resource guarding if that’s the only thing going on. We worked through it and haven’t had an episode in many months. We don’t even know if he will anymore because we don’t give him a chance too. Good luck and remember. Never train your dog to not growl. That is his way of communicating his displeasure. If you stop them from barking they can go straight into a bite without the warning a growl provides.
Do make sure you're working with a reputable and force-free behaviourist who is not going to use punishment or aversives - as that would only make this behaviour worse. (If you let us know where you are based, I can give you some directories to look up trainers or behaviourists in.) AS for the resource guarding from other dogs: Guarding from other dogs to some degree is a NORMAL dog behaviour. After all, it would be a bit of a stupid dog to just stand back and let another dog walk up and take a highly valued item off them. Dogs which guarded resources they valued, survived (in aons past) and passed on the genes for guarding - so it is an adaptive behaviour, associated with the survival of the species... Genetically, some dogs have more resource guarding in them than others. As long as the way they communicate with other dogs is appropriate (ie a quiet growl at a dog's first attempt to take something - rather than a full on throat tackle), then I would personally consider that to be very normal. When I give my dogs Kongs, if one of them finishes before the other and walks too close to another dog still eating a Kong, there will be a growl. This is perfectly normal form of dog communication. Day care is a really poor idea for the vast majority of dogs, and this is just one instance of why... Like Michael says, it sounds like it has only enflamed the guarding. HOWEVER: Guarding against you - whether it's locations, items, food bowl etc etc - is NOT normal behaviour to be accepted. That can most definitely be worked on with a behaviourist and is not an 'ok' behaviour for a dog to display. The best way to deal with guarding sleeping locations is simply to teach the dog to get off when asked for a tasty treat - to ensure the dog WANTS to comply. The best way to deal with guarding a food bowl, is to repeatedly walk up to about 2m away at first and lob a tasty chunk of leftover food into the bowl, and to do this once or twice at each meal time. You will soon find he comes to welcome your approach and you can eventually pick up the bowl, add the treat and put it down again... And guarding items, really involves training a reliable DROP cue, as Chirag shows: But getting rid of the guarding behaviour with people, you are right, is NOT going to translate across to not guarding from other dogs and it is likely that he will never be a suitable candidate for day care.
Well we are not really going to do abytanyt about the dog resource guarding for now. We took Fred for another medical exam with a specialist and it turns out he has a neuropathic pain issue. So basically he's always in chronic pain. Most likely the root cause of the aggression. He's going to start on gabapentin in conjunction with a behavior modification program. HooeHopef th gabapentin will make him easier to work with and be less stressful to him.
So sorry to hear that your young dog has been in pain. If the resource guarding persists anyway, it's well worth treating as it's an issue that usually responds well to behavioral modification. Hopefully the pain meds will make a big difference.
We are still going to do a whole behavior modification program with him. Awaiting the behaviorist's plan. She came over Monday and spent 3 hours with us and Fred. So definitely still going to work on things along with the meds.
