Trouble with food possessiveness
I have a super adorable 12-week old Cardigan Corgi named Stanley who gets spoiled to no end. He's an only puppy in a doting family of my husband and I (we've both been in love with Corgis for years and knew we'd get one as soon as we lived somewhere that would allow it). Now, in puppy classes I've found that he's food possessive around other dogs-- mostly just growling-- and I talked with the instructor on how to deal with that and have swiftly implemented her suggestions when appropriate.
In the past couple of days I have noticed, however, that while I'm preparing his food he will start barking and growling at me until he gets it. I usually put his food in kongs to keep him busy while I eat or do something else so the barking starts the moment I get the kong to the kitchen counter and anywhere near his food bag. At first I thought maybe he disliked the change in how he's being fed but he started doing it when I was opening a box of treats for him, too. When he starts barking I leave the food on the counter and walk out of the room until he settles but it seems to have had no real affect yet. He usually catches on to things really quickly (example: training him out of hard mouthing took about 2 days of consistently ignoring him when he did it) so I'm not sure if maybe my approach is just wrong and there's something else I should try to get this to stop or if maybe it will take him longer to get this. Has anyone else dealt with this or found something really useful/successful?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bev Levy on
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Sparty tends to go through stages where he thinks barking will get dinner to him sooner. I either turn my back to him and wait until he shuts up or I have also shook a can with change at him too. Either one has worked for me. Unfortunately Sparty tends to revive behaviors like this every once in a while and I have to remind him it is a no no.
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Permalink Reply by Sam Tsang on
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Hi Natalie, google "NILF", apply the principal, practice it each meal and your dog learn to sit and wait for food.
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Permalink Reply by John Wolff on
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At some point, Al was getting a bit food-aggressive (or 'resource-guarding'?) in our very confined kitchen, so my wife started making them both wait outside the kitchen while we prepare food. Also at some point, she started making Al go to his crate while food is being prepared. It's funny: to this day, Al believes he must go to his crate in order to be fed, and always waits there. As soon as the bowls are on the floor, they come running, we say, "Stop!" and they stop and wait beside the bowls until we tell them they can eat. I'm not sure why we do this, it's a habit, a dominance-and-control thing allegedly to assert our authority. The point is, you can control everything because you control the food, and it is an opportunity to reinforce this point with the animal.
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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I would try training him to "sit" and "wait" when you put his food down, rather than just ignoring.
Jack is very vocal and he "talks" to us all the time. Sometimes he gets excited when being fed and gives happy barks or "a-roos" of anticipation. In his case, he's just sharing his pleasure at the thought of eating. But he will sit and wait when I put his food down, and I can walk across the room and he'll still wait til I say "ok". Of course, we started with a much shorter (second or two) wait.
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