Viewing Single Post From: Rascal Growled At Me

Viewing Single Post From: Rascal Growled At Me
Linda & Fred	May 13 2009, 07:00 AM
Chatterbox Posts: 706 Group: Full Members Member #571 Joined: November 28, 2007	Fred snarls and growls really nastily if he has a bone and someone just happens to walk past him! I put him in a crate normally. When Beauty was in the vet's on Sunday (silly girl ate a fish hook) I gave him one in the garden to see how he went. When he growled at me as usual I took the opportunity of it being just us to teach him to pack it in. I used the rattle can to just rattle as he growled as I walked past, and after a while he stopped growling as he learnt to trust that I wouldn't take it away and that I wouldn't stand for his behaviour. It paid back dividends later as when he had just one tiny bit left that he'd already left (couldn't find it in the grass so I sent him searching for it) he not only let me approach him, he spat it out on request into the bin. With Fred it's hard sometimes to find a balance between teaching him his behaviour is unnecessary (ie I just gave him the bone I'm not gonna take it away again) and unnacceptable and breaching the trust we have built up. Things seem to be working, but I have seem behaviourists say that when a dog is guarding food the last thing an owner should do is remove it, withold it or make them wait for it, but we each have to find our own way.


Rascal Growled At Me · Training & Behaviour