I need advice. I have a 4 yr old lab Mia that has suddenly started growling at us if we touch her when she is eating. We recently got a new male lab pup (now 16 weeks). Mia is scared of all other dogs but has never shown any type of aggression toward people or animals even though she was attacked by another pup same age as her when she was 10 weeks old. She has started warming up to the pup and will play with him now. We have always periodically put hands in her dish when eating to help prevent this ever becoming an issue. We feed the dogs in separate rooms and when I'm doing training with the pup she follows along and does the cued behavior so she gets treats the same as him. I'm at a loss as to why this is suddenly happening and what to do about it.
This isn't recommended. You should give your dog plenty of space when she's eating so she doesn't feel threatened. This isn't aggression, she is letting you know that she is uncomfortable with being touched when she is eating, that's all.
We feed Duggan away from traffic in his own space. Sometimes even out on the deck. Don't make it worse, let them be to eat in peace. I can approach but I've worked with him to eliminate the behaviour because of our 1 year old. I never stuck my hand in his bowl but I hold back some of his food every so often and as he permits I put the remainder of his food in the bowl while he's eating so he associates my approach as a good thing. There's more to it though. There are some great threads on here for resource guarding if that's what she is doing.
Hi, I have dogs at various stages/ages together...I have always separated them and given then a calm quiet undisturbed corner to eat. I think it perfectly fine to worry that your meal will be scoffed up by a cheeky new youngster...just keep them apart and give them human space too
Agree with all above, do NOT, do not do this. Please do not do it with the new pup. This can create food aggression, not prevent it. Here are a couple of links on this. I suggest you might need to start over with Mia, following the suggestions given. http://www.cappdt.ca/UserFiles/File/articles/resource guarding for parents.pdf Sorry, there's another one I wanted to give you, a Dr. of Animal Behaviour who has addressed this issue with dogs brought up as Mia. But I can't find it right now. He works with the authors of the first link so it's much the same. P.S. I have to wonder if the arrival of the puppy has a bearing on Mia's change in attitude too. Even though you keep them separate when feeding there is a "thing" called "Re-directed Aggression." I"m more used to it with cats but dogs will show it as well.
Consult a good behaviourist. If she is warning you when near her food this needs a treatment plan. It's not just a case of leaving her in peace to eat as it can escalate very rapudly in to more thsn a warning or into resource guarding of other items.
I agree, we feed ours separately. They need to know that their food is for them alone and no-one, human or animal, will be allowed near it. .
If training to prevent food guarding you have a multi step plan before touching the bowl but each step requires the addition of a tasty addition ie chicken, roast beef - something good so that a dog begins to welcome a human approach as it means good things are to come.
On the Labrador Site it says: Your objective is to be able to actually put your hands in your puppy’s bowl whilst he is eating without him becoming at all unhappy. We keep her food dishes in the laundry room so it is out of the way of traffic and feed pup at different spot at same time so he is busy with his own food. We have always given her a pat or two when she is eating and tell her good girl. I'm wondering if it's because I recently started adding coconut oil to her food that made it higher value. I appreciate all the advice.
That's talking about a behaviour modification programme for when your puppy has guarding issues, working towards changing her negative feelings of you being around during meal times into positive ones. In your post, you have made it sound as if you have been putting your hands in her bowl even though she didn't have any guarding issues, and in doing so, may have inadvertently created a problem where there previously was none. Let me put it this way. If you got grumpy with being disturbed when you were eating, you might grumble at people bothering you. If, over time, those people started bringing you little gifts while you were eating, you would start to enjoy them being near. This is the behaviour modification programme that is being talked about on the main site - changing the dog's emotional response from a negative to a positive. That's not what you've described, though. This is the human equivalent of what you have described: you're someone who is ambivalent about people being around when you're eating. They don't really bother you. A friend comes up while you're eating and moves a few chips around your plate. Hmm, that's a bit weird, but, OK, never mind. Except, it keeps on happening. Regularly, when you're eating, someone comes up and fiddles with the food on your plate. It starts to get really irritating, to the point you snap and tell them to back away from your plate! Can you see the difference? In any event, she is growling at you now, which is telling you loud and clear (with perfectly good communication skills) that she doesn't like it. So the very first thing you must do, is to stop it. Otherwise, she may well feel she has to escalate to get her point across. As an aside, and I'm not suggesting you are, but for the benefit of other people who may come across this post, don't tell her off - ever - for growling, because it is a perfectly acceptable form of communication. If a dog learns that growling gets him told off, then he'll certainly stop growling, but it won't have fixed the underlying issues, meaning, if pushed into that situation again, he may feel he has no recourse but to escalate, which would mean air snapping, or worse.
Maybe I should have written more- I was keeping post short. I don't always put my hand in her dish- once in a great while just so she knows nothing bad happens- like when I need to slip medicine in with her food (she likes medicine as long as it's with her food) but kids already put her food down. I would never tell a dog off for growling- that is a major communication of warning and to do so would give her no option but to bite to communicate her feelings.
I agree, if she's growling you need to change what you are doing. Have her eat in a quiet place, put the food down for her and leave her in peace to eat - no touching her either, I'd make sure the kids also know not to disturb her while she eats. My boy was a bit growly when I adopted him, probably just because everything was new. He quickly learnt that if we give him something, it's his to keep and he didn't have to worry. Or, if I wanted to take something away from him, I'd always swap it for something else he liked - food or another toy. I'd also drop treats if I walked past him while he was eating a kong or a chew. Just these small things, helped show him that he could trust us. The first sign of guarding is a lowered head over the item, stillness, and a stiff body. Here's my boy demonstrating that he felt a bit threatened by me standing above him taking a photo while he was trying to eat his cottage cheese. He stayed in this position completely frozen until I stepped away. If a dog looks like this, I wouldn't touch them or the food - because they are very clearly communicating that they aren't happy, and then to ignore that breaks their trust.
