We have a 5 year old lab that likes to take things, shoes, pillows. Not uncommon but he has now become very defensive when you try to get these items back from him. Bad enough that he will growl or show teeth. What can we do to help him or us?
Re: Aggressive bite! welcome to the forum, from me and jasper 14 month, sorry i cant help, some one will be along soon with good advice
Re: Aggressive bite! I can help on this subject as one of our dogs will do the same thing. what i do is i try and trade the item he has for something of higher value, does not always work, but most of the time it does. I am not going to tell you what we do if that does not work as i do not agree with it, but it has to be done especially with dangerous items like fruit cake and chocolate muffin.
Re: Aggressive bite! [quote author=Harley65 link=topic=4536.msg55419#msg55419 date=1392840155] Thanks for the input, maybe I will try the fruitcake!! [/quote] Sorry, worded it wrong in my post. We have had to trade a fruit cake off of him before because he stole it. They are dangerous to dogs as they have rasins in
Re: Aggressive bite! You could use JulieT's technique of an excited voiced "Is that for Meeeeeee!!" whilst brandishing a high value treat/swap. I always ran a close line between ignoring Lilly enough to show her that it really didn't matter to me that she had my mobile phone in her mouth (panicking internally) and keeping an eagle eye out for any signs of preparation for chewing at which point the tasty jackpot treats got an airing in an attempt to divert her attention. Do not, whatever you do get involved in a game of chase for the valuable item. Bad move. Welcome to the forum! jac and Lilly
Re: Aggressive bite! [quote author=drjs@5 link=topic=4536.msg55476#msg55476 date=1392844903] You could use JulieT's technique of an excited voiced "Is that for Meeeeeee!!" [/quote] Ha ha ha - you see, gundog trainers around the country will soon be swapping their deadpan and quiet "give" and "dead" for (deep breath) "is that for meeeeeeeeeeee"?!?! 8) : : ;D ;D ;D Seriously, my boy has never been defensive about items - he nicks anything and everything, but only to first check he can't get us to chase him (he never seems to give up hope) and then delivers for a reward. We've stopped the food rewards (but still say "good boy" when he hands things over) but this hasn't stopped the thievery even one bit...and it's been months now...I'll crack soon, and chase him round the room to snatch my new, small, expensive, leather good out of his mouth, I'm sure...
Re: Aggressive bite! Theres always something to learn. Ive been chasing Otis for things, I must change tactics. I was doing some retrieves today, and was delighted when Oatsy who usulay dosent give the ball to me, but likes to tease me with it for a chase, responded well, to my drop ! and treat, mmm maybe need to get him to put it in my hand. I do like the , Is that for me ! Its quite funny.
Re: Aggressive bite! Definitely do not chase, I second and third that!! ;D I had a problem with resource aggression with my boy when we first got him. He was around a year (I thought he was younger due to date miscalculation) and would growl and/or snap if he got something and we would try to take it away. Disconcerting to say the least, especially since we had raised our previous two dogs from puppyhood and had never had this issue with them. We used the "swapping" method to fairly good success, but still ran into some problems. What really worked for me was a couple of techniques: 1) when the dog has something safe (a chew toy, for example) walk by and casually drop some treats while he is chewing it. Don't try to take it away. Do this a number of times, gradually shortening the distance between your hand and the item, until you are putting your hand right next to the item and/or touching it, with no growls or reactions from the dog, other than an happy "oo good, look, a hand!! Hands are good! Hands bring treats!" type reaction. If you use a clicker for training, clicking for "no reaction" can help the dog understand what you want. This may proceed fairly quickly if the dog is okay with it, but don't go too fast. Set him up for success. Once this is okay, try the same technique with the things that solicit the growl reaction. Take it slowly, as before. 2) part of the reason why the dog growls when you try to take something away is that he knows once it's gone he doesn't get it back. This is why the "swap" can start to lose it's magic after awhile. So....the second thing you can do is to "sometimes" let him keep something he's snatched. So, in my dog's case, if he found al scrap of paper, or a cardboard box, or even an old shoe, I would do a swap for a treat, and then GIVE IT BACK. To his great delight - he would run around with the item or shred it to pieces with abandon. And it didn't matter, because it was something I really didn't care about. These two methods really helped with the resource guarding. It's not completely gone, today, for example, he found a rawhide bone on our walk. I let him keep it, and he carried it home in triumph. Once home he was happily chewing away on it and I went to pet him, and he growled. So...I did method #1, and dropped treats nearby, gradually getting my hand closer and closer, until eventually I could pet him while he was chewing it without a reaction. I imagine it's something we will have to keep an eye on, I have not done any of the deliberate training on this for awhile as the behaviour had mainly stopped. But today was a good reminder that a little refresher now and again is not a bad idea. Hope this works for you, sorry for the long post but it doesn't seem very often that I can give good advice to someone so thought I'd jump in with both feet!
Re: Aggressive bite! well done lisa, you have done amazing i would not have been able to take a rescue dog, fair play to you, jasper loves to steal tea towels,.....if i am busy i think hey well take it keep it,....he dont want to keep it, he drops it at my feet, he wants the treat for leaving it,.....who as the most fun, them or us ;D ;D ;D
