Food aggression ... so upset, please help/share
About 6 weeks ago, when Loki was 14 weeks, he bit me very hard (enough to draw blood and cause a permanent scar on my knuckle) when I took a bone away from him. He showed no other signs of aggression. He did not warn me vocally – no growling or baring teeth - but looking back, his body language was definitely “this is MINE!” he had his paws on the bone and when I approached, he turned his body away from me, hunched over. It was extremely upsetting, but me and my fiancé had signed him up for puppy classes the week that it happened so we decided to seek advice.
The trainer was really helpful, and since we hadn’t noticed any aggression in him other than the bones, she suggested that we play the trade game with him and teach him the drop command. She also recommended only hand feeding. He was a really quick learner, and picked it up quickly. We never let him have the bully stick completely, we always have it in our hand when we ask him to drop. Then he gets a new one. Fun things happen when hands and people are around! I thought everything was fine.
Yesterday, while I was at the gym, my fiancé calls me and tells me that Loki bit him…twice. Not hard enough to break the skin, but it was definitely a bite and not his usual mouthing (he’s about he’s teething right now). My fiancé had decided to give Loki some food in his bowl, take the bowl away when it was empty, add more, rinse and repeat. Loki bit him twice, both times when he went to take the empty bowl away. The second time was hard enough that my fiancé got scared.
When I came home, I decided to recreate the scenario, as Loki definitely views me as more of a leader than my fiancé. Sure enough, he did the exact same thing – he lunged and tried to bite me when I removed the empty bowl.
Of note, I sometimes feed him kibble out of a bowl during lunchtime (I work a 9 to 5 job, and am usually in a rush to get back to work – this way I still have time to take him for a walk during lunch) and hand feed him breakfast and dinner – he gets about 2 cups + treats spread throughout the day. Of note, he WOLFS his food down when it is in the bowl.
I’m completely heartbroken, cried for probably the remainder of the day. Worst Valentine’s Day ever.
We are contemplating re-homing him. We are also in the process of contacting our trainer to ask if she knows of somebody who can come to our house and figure out what we are doing wrong.
The kicker is, nobody believes us when we say that he’s food aggressive. He’s the sweetest dog EVER to everybody. But it is now we are scared as we cannot even tell if he’s being aggressive with his toys (he does some of the same posturing with his toys - paws on them, runs away with them, but he’s always loved being chased and when I do work up the nerve now to put a hand on a toy, he totally lets me and will drop it if I ask) and we are becoming afraid to even take toys away from him. I'm also annoyed that his tail is docked, we literally cannot tell if he's happy or not, even when he is happy (saying hi to people) he NEVER wags his nub.
I’m completely heartbroken, doing my best not to sob while typing all this out… and while I know the best thing to do is get a professional, I’m really not sure if we can deal with this.
Some insight or if anybody has similar stories to share, I would really like to hear them. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Cathie on
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Children need to be taught appropriate behavior around dogs. If they are too young to understand, they should never be left alone with the dog, and certainly not when the dog is eating. Otherwise you are asking for trouble. No dog is 100% reliable in all situations, especially a dog prone to displaying dominant behavior.
I repeat, to avoid conflict, children and adults should leave the dog alone when it is eating.
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Permalink Reply by Jane Christensen on
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Children do need to learn to respect dogs and need to know how to treat them appropriately and I enforce these rules BUT again my dogs need to know that it is not ok to guard their food...from anyone. That's how accidents happen. When I get on the floor and pretend to eat...my dogs allow me to share with them...it's a safety factor in my home. I don't encourage children to go by the dog dishes but if they do I need to know that they will "tolerate" it.
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Permalink Reply by Tracy Marie on
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We would love to have children someday, but for now, we have a cat. Loki really wants to play with her. He's not aggressive towards her at all. (She loves to hate him right now, but she's acclimating well.) However, we are worried that should our cat decide one day to have some of Loki's food, or even some food that we may have accidentally dropped on the kitchen floor, that Loki will attack her. That is our biggest worry.
We can heal, but a bite to our cat would be devastating. We control her interaction with him and she has several cat trees she can use to escape him. But accidents can happen, hence why we want to work on Loki's behavior now while he's young.
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Permalink Reply by manda & molly on
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I almost had a food problem with Molly, she would let me near the bowl while she was eating to refill her water, but she would start inhaling her food so fast I was afraid she would choke. She was the tint of the litter, so I think she was used to getting food taken from her. I honestly don't know what clicked with her, but I would take a spoonfull of wet food while she was eating and would just plop the wet food in and she gradually start to back up and wait for me too add the food. I didn't want to spawn a picky eater, so I only did it once a week, but it became a big treat for me to go near her food.
Good luck!
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This is what we are going to try. Baby steps! Thank you for the insight. :)
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Permalink Reply by Anna Morelli on
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I happen to agree with Cathy. I've had several grandchildren living with me for many months at a time and they were all taught how to act around the dogs and that you do not go by the dog when it's eating or go take away stuff from the dog. We always supervised closely the interaction with young children. They all now have their own personal dogs and nobody has any problems. I also like the technique described by manda & molly. I agree totally with Tracy about the conflicting information you find and it's very difficult, especially for a first time dog owner, to sort things out. My advice here is, no matter how big the "expert" is, don't do anything or follow any advice you're not 100% comfortable with.
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It really is overwhelming! And unfortunately we are finding that a lot of the advice our friend - who gave us Loki - was dead wrong. But it will be fine, I feel a lot better now.
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Tracy, I am sorry that this discussion is getting off track but I do need to ask Anna and Cathie how they teach their dogs that food falling off a highchair or spilled may be different from their dog dish.Same way with toys. I have to know that if a handful of cherrios gets spilled that my dogs will at least share them and I don't have to worry about it. Balls or toys also. If the neighbor child comes up with some food in their hand...how does you dog know it's not ok? By teaching a dog "manners" you are making a better situation all around. Yes, children need to know the rules too but there are accidents and any dog needs to know what the rules are so that we can all be safe.
Loki is still very young and I do believe you can work with this. Hang in there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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@Jane I always had multiple dogs ranging in size from a toy breed to a giant breed. I teach my dogs never to approach the table when we are seated to eat. They lie down a few feet away and fall asleep. They will check under the table after the table has been cleared. When I had children in highchairs, the high chair was in the table area and the dogs knew not to approach. If the kid was really messy, we had a plastic tablecloth under the high chair and it was cleaned off before the dogs could approach.
As for children on the move, ours or visiting children, NO ONE was allowed to walk around with food. They only ate sitting at the table. Since dogs were never fed from the table ( and get fed before our main meals ) they never expect anything that way. Now I have a small service dog that comes to restaurants and curls up on a chair by the table, she is trained never to even sniff the table itself, and shows no interest towards any of the food or smells, though excited about her treats, food in her bowl and I add even people food to her bowl...
With toys, I taught the dogs not to go near the children's toys when the children were playing on the floor and all toys were picked up, or put away, when the children walked away. If they left a toy on the floor and it got chewed, they got the message pretty quick. Dogs were taught never to take anything from upper surfaces.
These rules are particularly important with puppies who are curious and check everything out with their mouth, older dogs, once trained, seem to not be as interested in kids toys. Toys I considered dangerous to the dogs if ingested ( very small balls, Nerf toys, balloons for example) were banned from the house altogether.
It worked for us, but I run a pretty tight ship. I've had dogs who would fight over their food bowl among each other (5 full grown intact Alaskan Malamutes) their meals were structured, bowls always put down in the same order, in the same place, "sit, wait and watch me" before being allowed to eat, and no one allowed to go to the other's bowl even if empty. I was there to supervise and pick up empty bowls. These dogs ate at lightning speed, so it went quickly.
You have to know your dogs, your kids, and yourself to figure out what works best in each situation. The dogs, I find, are the most adaptable when rules are fair, clearly put forth and, above all consistent.
Mai made an excellent point when she said that she knew she was not assertive by nature and asked for pup that was not dominant. This kind of self knowledge is rare among puppy buyers who are more likely to be focused on looks. Kudos to Mai.
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@ Anna,,,point taken. I also have 3+ dogs eating together with no problems. I do have to keep a couple who would not care if the other ate there's in a kennel. To me personally it's a safety issue and we all do what is best for us:)
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Absolutely!
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Jane, I agree with you that dogs need to be taught manners and rules. However, the situations you describe are different from the original question of being bitten while taking away a dog's bowl or a bone from its mouth. The owner had a false sense that everything was OK. I would consider that on the contrary, the owner may have inadvertently trained the dog to be even more protective of its bowl. Why did the fiance pick up the bowl, not once but twice! after being bitten the first time? why did the owner come home and "recreate the situation", virtually inviting the dog to bite her again when she removed the bowl? Obviously something is not working. Rather than pick up the bowl to prove a point, why not drop food into the bowl from a safe distance? Why not leave the dog in peace with its bowl, for heaven's sake???
I would not imagine that I could teach a dog that food falling on the floor is different from food in their dish. If you are very quick and the dog is well trained to "leave it" on command, you may prevent them from eating the Cheerios. Otherwise, in my house anyway, if it falls to the floor, it is fair game. (Obviously if it is something dangerous or poisonous to the dog, and I was there, I would act to remove it from the dog's mouth. Hopefully in such a case, I would have already trained the dog to allow me to safely take objects from its mouth or "drop it.")
As for the neighbor child with food, you would of course need to be there to enforce the "leave it" cue, after training. I would not assume that the dog "knows it is not OK" even with the best of training. I still believe very young children and dogs need to be supervised or kept apart, for everyone's safety.
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