Hi, im new here and have come across your site whilst looking for advice on how to handle my 6 month old pure bred black Labrador - Bailey. We live in Tasmania, Australia. I'll give a brief overview of Bailey and his life and some of the challenges we are having. Any advice would be so greatly appreciated. Bailey comes from a large litter of 9 pubs and i was told by the breeder he was pretty low on the pecking order. He was never aggressive towards other pups and loved to play. Also as an FYI he is still an entire and i have not had him de-sexed as yet. From the moment we got him we noticed some minor signs of food aggression which has now reared its head on numerous occasions. Bailey got into a habit of really protecting his food and he would positions himself between us and his food... he would growl and even snap if we got too close. We read a lot and started using techniques such as lobbing food near him and just remaining calm. At one stage he bit me quite badly (as a young pup) and it was a decent bite into my arm, drawing blood (no stitches). When this happened i was very heavy on him and put him into out laundry and locked him there. I was with him patting him as he ate, trying to get him used to me but it just didn't work and he snapped and i got bit. Yes, maybe my fault but man its so hard. I yelled at him and gave him a couple of clips on his rump, to which he just got more aggressive and even lunged at me to bite me. I have had many hunters and older men tell me they would hit their dog and so much so they would get the bad behavior our with force. I have tried this at times but have never really actually hurt him or hit him with force... i find it difficult to want to actually cause him pain, however some people tell me to do it. I have been close to belting him that's for sure. As a puppy and now an adolescent we spent many hours training Bailey and have had many walks and trips to the beach. He loves balls and sticks and even more so he loves people. He still wees everywhere when he is excited..... He is such a good looking dog too, so everywhere we go people are all over him wanting to pat him.....and not once in his life has he ever shown an any aggression towards anyone outside of me and my wife at home when he is resource guarding. Not even a growl. He is now at a stage where he will steal underwear, socks, mobile phones. keys and want us to chase him around the house to get them. He often shows aggression giving them up, but we have learnt to swap him for food or treats. We do have a dog pen in our backyard for him but he is seldom there. i will often give him treats or longer chewing items such as pig ears etc in his pen. But mostly he is inside. Both my wife and i can work from home and often do so..... he is very rarely locked away - although at times we put him in his crate (he was crate trained) when he becomes too much. Now as he has got older and bigger he worries us as he has had some very rare moments he seemingly loses his mind. We do not feed him from a bowl anymore following a dog behavior experts advice.... and we use his food to train him daily. He is very smart and will do a lot almost anything for food. He will sit and wait and not eat what is in front of him..... even when he has high value treats in front of him.... but once we let him have it or he grabs hold of something he values, we have no hope of ever getting it off him. He growls if we even get close and will seriously attack us if we try to take it away. We shower him with so much love and when he does this we feel really flat. I could list 50 times he has become aggressive with food or underwear.... he even steals food of our bench if we do not look and then it is impossible to get it off him... he ate a full chicken breast off our BBQ and it would have been so hot... i tried to get it off him but he attacked me. The latest and most serious incident is below; This morning i woke up to him on our bed (my wife had gone to get coffee) and he had somehow got a bag of his treats from my wife's bedside draw (we keep this there to use when needed). He sleeps in our room and often a mix of floor or on the foot of our bed - which we are fine with. I woke to him growling and being aggressive towards this bag of dry treats.. it was just some try food of his in a zip lock bag. He was biting it and i could see he was in an aggressive state... i sat up and just said in a calm voice... "its ok boy" and patted him on his back and to which he growled even louder... i know he didnt want me anywhere near him... given i had just woken up.. i decided no to go out to our kitchen and get chicken for him (his highest value treat)i normally would have , but part of me is so sick of having to reward him every time he gives an item back he shouldn't have anyway. So i continued to pat him and he dropped his bag and it fell off the bed... he just laid there staring at it and it had not been broken open as yet.... i patted him again and spoke softly as i do every day.... To this he turned around and lunged at me with ongoing savage attacks.... 3 or 4 frenzied bites .... i had to use a pillow and our doona to protect myself and still got bitten on my inner leg (which is now very sore and if i hadn't been wearing pants would have no doubt broken the skin easily) He then jumped off the bed and my wife came home too see our dog being frantic.. he jumped on the floor and tore the bag to bits and was eating the food... my wife rushed out to get chicken and then we threw some on the ground... he would charge over and inhale it as quick he could then rush back to his broken bag... we eventually got him into our lounge room and i walked out to see if all was ok and he then ran at me barking and wanting to bite me again... he was seriously out of control and he saw me as an issue... (FYI he has done this towards my wife before also - only once tho) He was ok towards my wife this time as she had a bowl full of chicken and he followed to her our laundry where we locked him in there and will remain for some time... We dont know what to do? We had a specialist come in and she was good but we didnt even cover this behavior and she didnt want to get him in that state..??? I wanted to show her this but she didnt let us. Do i get his balls removed?? i did want to use him at stud for some people who requested it as he has good bloodlines and is very handsome, but i dont care for that if he is going to be like this. Do i need to actually come right onto him and show him he is not boss? i worry about this because my guess is he would end up hurting me too. We love him a lot and honestly spend our days cuddling him and loving him... he is such an affectionate dog 99.9% of the time... but today when he snapped we havent seen that before.. and given we are a young couple considering children it terrifies us on what would happen if he lost control again. Sorry for the essay but im just not sure what else we can do? Also im not one who will ever hurt animals but i am ok with some form of discipline should it help him long term.
Please excuse the couple of typos and the pic of my boy is my profile pic for those interested. Thanks to anyone who has any thoughts.
I have read and re read your post , and to be quite honest , your poor lad must be very confused ! First think I must say is to please stop hitting him , this achieves nothing at all , apart from adding to his problems . Why do you want to interrupt his feeding ? So , you`re sitting enjoying a meal and someone comes along and starts moving your plate around , stopping you from eating , you wouldn't be best pleased I`m sure , so let him eat in peace without fear , because it is fear causing the reactions . The confusion I mentioned is due to you cuddling him and spoiling him one moment and then smacking him the next, he simply doesn't know where he is . Yelling and losing tempers around dogs is about the worst thing you can do , no matter how hard they push the buttons . We believe , on this forum , in positive methods of training , so " showing him who is the boss " is , for us an outdated and frankly wrong approach to dog training . Can I respectfully suggest that you have a look around the forum , reading many of the sticky posts on training and problems ? You will find help here , he is so young and it isn't too late to change your methods .
I agree completely with @kateincornwall - I read your post a few times and just didn’t know where to start. But this is an excellent place to start - so are all the training and other articles. https://www.thelabradorsite.com/labrador-training/ and welcome to you from Mags, Tatze and Keir from Manchester UK Tatze is my pet dog, a black Lab and she's four years old. Tatze means 'paw' in German. Keir is my fifth Guide Dog puppy, a yellow Golden Retriever/Flatcoat cross and he's six months old. .
It’s hard to give a detailed enough explanation of how to deal with this in a short post but there is a great (short) book called ‘Mine’ by Jean Donaldson which gives completely practical step-by-step guides as to how to gradually train your resource-guarding dog not to do this. Her methods are kind and logical.
I am so sorry that despite your efforts your young puppy is causing you such grief. It is so shocking when they become so aggressive and so quickly. My last dog came as a young pup and was resource guarding food badly and I remember how much it upset me as all the previous dogs had been completely fine around their food. I never again bothered him while he was eating and so never gave him any opportunity to get aggressive with me. When feeding him around the other dogs I would make sure that he was in a separate space and he could go and take his food somewhere safer if he wanted. I have practised swopping items with him. I always have a treat that I can swop for whatever he has and quite often if I can I will return the treasure back to him if it’s something that I don’t mind him having. I have now produced a default behaviour that the best thing to do with a treasure is to take it to Mum as there will be a reward! So what I have been doing is changing my dogs emotional state around the food and the stolen items. ie Mum will protect my food for me and not compete for it. If I find something and I take it to her it’s better than keeping it to myself. This takes time but really pays off and I can now move his food or touch him and take off his collar while he is eating if I ABSOLUTELY have to. There will be lots of super advice on this forum. But please stop hitting or shouting at your puppy as you are only scaring him and making the problem worse.
A few thoughts after reading your post: I've had a dog in the past with severe resource guarding issues. This was many many years ago and there was not the wealth of information available today regarding positive ways of dealing with it. All of the old-school methods just made the issues much worse. I know you've said you've tried lobbing food at him already, but I think you need to take a step back and go really, really slowly, and try this method again. If he starts growling or getting upset, go back a step and work from that distance until you can move forward and have him not react. The advice in the first link I posted below is really good and well worth reading. Just remember to take things super slowly so that he feels safe. In the interim, if you have another incident like you did with the bag of treats, I would not try to take it off of him at this point. Just let him have it. I would even avoid trading treats for items at this stage, it doesn't sound like he's ready yet. You need to have the attitude of "ho hum, whatever...big deal...just a bag of treats! (or sock, or whatever it is)", and just be really calm and relaxed about it, basically just ignore him. In time, working on his trust, he will learn to relax and not be so hyper vigilant about things being taken off of him. So far nothing he takes is of any real danger to him so it simply isn't worth trying to take them off of him for now. This won't be forever, in time you can begin trading very low value items for very high value treats, then giving him back the low value item so that he learns he gets things back. Then you can progress to higher value items, but you really need to take things very slowly. Regarding taking things off counters, that is super common. While you're working on his trust issues, try to keep things out of his reach so that he doesn't have the opportunity. I know this is easier said than done, and for the items he does manage to grab, as long as the item isn't dangerous or very valuable to you, just let him have it for now. You mentioned feeling sick giving him a treat in exchange for something he shouldn't have anyways. He doesn't think of it that way. He has something he really wants and you're trying to take it off of him. You giving him a really nice treat in exchange for that item is teaching him trust, so think of it as a trust-building exercise rather than thinking you're rewarding him for doing something "naughty". But definitely hold off on trading items for treats until you can trade very low value items without him growling or looking very uncomfortable about it. Labs are very challenging as pups and adolescents. Try to keep in mind that he's an oversized puppy brain in an adult body, and will remain like that for quite some time. They may look like full grown adult Labs but inside they're like toddlers Bless them. I have faith that you and Bailey will have the relationship you are hoping for, just be patient with him PS - neutering him won't have any affect on his resource guarding, that is a separate behavioural issue that needs to be addressed through training. And showing him who's boss won't work either, more likely it will amplify his aggression towards you rather than causing him to "submit". Here are a couple of links that should help you: https://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-stop-your-dog-growling-over-food/ https://www.thelabradorsite.com/aggressive-and-reactive-behaviour-in-labradors/
Just like others I have read and re-read your post and even as a trainer/behaviourist am struggling to give a polite response. As @Joy has suggested get a copy of Mine by Jean Donaldson, read it and re-read it - both you and your wife and then start a very slow process to retrain your boy around food. Food guarding is common and frequently starts in the litter particularly where the breeder offers just one or two bowls of food for the puppies so they have to compete to eat . Please do not hit , shout or chastise your dog for doing what is perfectly normal canine behaviour in the form of growling and now biting you to tell you back off from his food! Dogs will normally offer a series of warnings before biting - these normally start with a short body freeze, often hunched over with head down over the food/article, if this is ignored the dog will escalate the warning to a growl, then a snarl with teeth showing, leading to a snap towards the offender and finally will escalate to a bite, which is where you are now. The relearning process will be very long and slow and under the current circumstances I would advise under the management of an experienced 'positive' trainer/behaviourist
Absolutely 100% correct that she didn't have you provoke your dog to react . Any qualified trainer/behaviourist works to reduce risk of an aggressive reaction with a dog, particularly where the dog is known to be resource guarding and to put a plan in place to modify/change the behaviour not encourage it! Even with a dog with no guarding issues I would never just take something away or pat them while they were eating.
You've had some brilliant advice above. The thing I would reiterate is that you need to understand this behaviour is born of FEAR. FEAR that you're going to take something precious from him. FEAR because you're unpredictable and can't be trusted. Removing his gonads and thereby his testosterone is going to do absolutely nothing to reduce this fear. In fact, it's entirely possible it could exacerbate it. You need to work slowly to regain his trust, as others have stated. Play some swapping games in your training with low-value toys. You want to make sure that for every ten times you take something from him, he gets a treat and then the toy back nine times. At least that. With his issues, maybe even nineteen out of twenty. That means, again, with a low value toy or object at this point (it has to be low value to him so he's not scared of losing it), you can take it, give him a good reward then immediately give him the toy back. He will learn that giving it up is a win-win because he gets a reward and gets it back. This will make it more likely he will give you other things in the future. But, do not test him with objects he really wants until you have a huge history of playing this game. I mean many weeks of playing it a couple of times a day. The instant he shows you any body language that shows you he's not happy - this includes turning his head away from you, licking his lips, avoiding eye contact - then move away. Stop what you're doing. Give him space. Never, ever, ever, admonish him for using his ways of communicating. This is how you end up with dogs who bite as a first line of defence. Dogs are brilliant communicators. We need to learn their language. All the unwanted behaviours you are experiencing are based in fear. It's your job to change his emotional response so those behaviours are no longer necessary, rather than repressing the behaviours themselves.
Great advice from everyone. I'll just add - remember, Bailey is still a puppy - the incident you describe with the treat bag and jumping on and off the bed etc. was just a huge game for him. Try and engage him frequently with more desirable games. Teach him the rules of tug. Teach him to find his toys or hidden treats. Teach him to look at you. Just teach him stuff - this will help tire him out and give you some alternative behaviours you can ask him to do if he's doing something you don't like. You can definitely turn this around.
Hi all, Firstly, thank you all for the advice - we really appreciate it and i appreciate the understanding. Above all else we love Bailey and he is one of the best things in our lives. I am super protective of him and am also learning myself how to become a better owner and trainer for him. From the day we got him until now we have altered so much. Upon reading my initial message this morning i would have liked to edit some things and perhaps wasn't overly clear with it all. 1. I have used a smack on his bottom only once and it was very light - i knew i may cop some heat over that on this forum but at that stage i was following advice of someone i know who has had hunting dogs for a long time. The smack would not have hurt him and i now regret it regardless. 2. We do have him trained quite well to give up all his toys and other items of value (outside of food - once he gets that she's gone forever) But.... i love the idea of training him to give a valued item and then giving it back to him after. I will begin doing this tomorrow during his daily training. I will find some items and have plenty of old socks he can chew on! The issue to date is the items he grabs are usually ones he is not allowed to have regardless - but i will think of some ideas to replicate them. 3. I did see all the signs this morning and i should have just got out of bed and moved away from him. I didnt realise he had possibly been there next to me for minutes prior to waking up, and saw me as a threat sleeping or awake. He was obviously very cranky when i awoke as he was already growling. I did not try to take anything off him but just there with him talking to him. It was a bad move and obviously he doesnt trust me at all around food. He was so frantic afterwards though. He was running around like we hadnt seen. I feel it was a combination of a lot of things that contributed to this - history, food and him being frustrated he hadnt broken the bag open. I will review all links to try to find a copy of the book recommended - i really appreciate all the help. It is now 10:10pm in Australia and i lay in my bed with my pup next to me laying on my arm whilst he chews my hand half asleep.
With this, I'm of the opinion that as long as it's not massively precious or dangerous to my dog, I still follow the same approach. One of Luna's favourite things is a plastic fly swat. If my husband leaves one laying around she'll grab it and chew it to bits. They cost a couple of euros so I'm not worried about it, it's just annoying. So, as a puppy, we played a lot of the "give it to me, get a treat, you get it back" game, while I watched it get chewed a bit more on each rep, but, hey, this was valuable training. She's a year old now and will still sometimes take one if she has the opportunity and she's bored, but it's very rare and she'll come and give it straight to me. I do the same with everything I can. Even a disgusting rotten deer leg on a walk. If she can give me something that high value, then that's just amazing, she needs to be rewarded - and, again, it's hugely valuable practice. Yes, I take it off her in the end, but not before she's had a LOT of repetitions where she gets it back. And sometimes, if it's nothing too terrible, hell, I let her keep it If it's something dangerous or valuable, I will obviously take it off her in exchange for a jackpot reward (reward after she's given it to me, not a bribe to coerce her into giving it to me), but then find something she values, such as a favourite toy and play the giving game with that. The instances do become less and less frequent as they get older. Your boy is just a puppy and grabbing stuff is perfectly normal. A combination of management (so there's nothing available to grab) and training (so he gives you any stuff he does grab) will help prevent it becoming a behaviour that "sticks".
Ha ha ! Of course he does, such fun for him! Really, at his age the best thing is to keep things out of his reach that you don't want him to have. The day will come when he no longer bothers with these things. Welcome to the forum from myself and Cassie who is 19 months. As a puppy/teenager she destroyed three pairs of my prescription glasses, each time nicked when I was momentarily distracted and didn't put them out of reach. Guaranteed reaction from me -- must have been a funny sight me practically begging her to give them to me, trying not to chase in desperation, her grinning at me and wagging her tail -- and me wailing as she crunched and the lenses popped across the room
My last lab was like this as lovely as he was we fixed it by feeding him small bits at a time making him sit and wait until told he could have it and had the bowl on the floor next to us while he ate to get him used to it then would sit next to the bowl before he could have it in the end I could put my head in his bowl with him take his bowl away halfway through the one we have now doesn' scoff food like labs do as a rule but can put a hand in his bowl and sit next to him while he eat this was done from day 1 so he didnt get much choice but we can't go near him if he has a bone so he doesn' have them now as we have young kids who don' understand
You poor thing! How distressing for you, I really feel your pain. You obviously both love Bailey very much, he looks a gorgeous lab from your avatar It's great that you have a behaviourist in to help already, and I can see her logic wrt not wanting to see what Bailey's behaviour is like when aroused, likely she is just getting a handle on him, what he is like, what you are like. This is difficult when you have an upset dog! I am interested in the breeders' comments, he was low in the pecking order? What was the breeder like? The set up for example? There is more evidence accruing around the importance of positive experiences in those early days in shaping some behaviours later on. Food for thought, literally. Now, I am not a trainer, or behaviourist. What I would look at though is actually not using his meals to train him. By all means, use food to train, but let him have his meals in peace. Pop his bowl in his crate and ignore him completely. It sounds like he needs a bit of headspace and calm. I would actually leave the room. I say this because it sounds like he is eating in a stressful manner, snatching, grabbing, quite desperate almost by the sounds of some of your descriptions. Now I appreciate that labs eat quickly, they just do...but I feel that with Bailey there may be a competitive element, so he ends up getting a bit aroused at the same time. Coupled with his age, this is not a good combination, especially as he seems such a relaxed dog most of the time. Aroused, excited, anxious dogs struggle with their behaviours, and they can't really listen or focus. So let's make life a bit easier for him Postive based training methods I think will really suit Bailey, rewarding him for what he does well, and setting him up for success. Work on choosing your battles, think about scenarios where he struggles and avoid them completely. For example, he steals underwear, and this causes conflict? Move them away, utilise the crate more, employ baby gates (these are my sanity savers!!!). Finally, you have a good lad there, with lovely behaviour on walks it seems, particularly around strangers, although I would avoid allowing anyone patting him on the head, as actually, most dogs don't like patting, hugging etc..it is not natural for them. If they want to fuss, just a quick "hello" and walk on, say you are in training with him. I do hope you stick around, and let us know how you are getting on with him
Hi all, Bailey is doing really well and in the period of 1 week since his meltdown, i now have him bringing valuable items to me in exchange for food. I have some little kangaroo treats he LOVES so every time he has something he is not supposed too, i call to him to "give" or "bring it here" and he comes a running! He doesn't always bring the item but he does drop it on the spot and my wife or i can then pick it up... We haven't had an issue with him grabbing food this week and whilst i know he wont give it up as yet, we are certainly in a better position than we have been. His behaviour around food is marginally better and although he still eats anything he can have access too, we have been training him with his meals and he seemingly learns new things very quickly. I will just continue to work with him. Both my wife and i have made a real effort to remain positive regardless of his actions which i have noticed he mirrors... if we're not angry then he isnt aggressive! He does have a little bit of naughty boy to him, but i love it! My next item for action is him jumping on ANYONE who walks in 25m of him haha! He does it in a very loving way, but not everyone wants him jumping on them! I have noticed some advice on this forum so will put some training into place. Thanks all and i will continue to update.
The breeder seemed to be very good - she is an animal lover and had a great set up for her pups - we were late on the scene and most puppies had already been taken... She had 2 pens with great housing and gave us puppy packs with info on the pup along with general advice from the net. We spoke about where he sat in the pecking order and she felt he was on the bottom end, which i believe it a big part of why he now protects his food. I am unsure on how she fed these pups from 0-8 weeks but my guess is shared bowls. Bailey's father is a big black athletic lab and looks like him in body and his mother was a chocolate lab a bit smaller but had a bigger head.... both very well behaved and trained! neither would go near the breeders house and knew their limits.... I have followed up with the breeder a few times and the breeder hasnt mentioned anything about this trait being within the parents along with not hearing anything from other siblings... although she hasnt really given me much info on anything to be honest.
G This is great to hear... whilst i wouldnt put my hand in his bowl as yet, i think he is better with us whilst he eats... I tend to not even use a bowl for his meals now and fill his toys with dry food and use meat for rewards for good behaviour.
