# Food Aggression



## Fluffyspoos (Aug 11, 2009)

Oh no ): I've always conditioned my puppies to get used to my hands being in their food/chews while they're young, letting them know no matter where I'm at or how close, they still get it.

Vienna, on the other hand, has some food aggression, I adopted her at about 2 years old. In fact the only time she's really nailed me (yeah she bit me good, never shared it here) was when I was pulling her off of Vegas's food. I now give a verbal command 'Leave it!' and she'll back off of anything. I'm not sure that'll work in your position though?

Some of the other members may have better advice.


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## tortoise (Feb 5, 2012)

This is something you will find huge division in dog trainers, shelters, owners.

There are the harassers. Now these people make me really angry! A perfect example is the rescue/animal cops type shows on TV and they will sho dogs being evaluated with the infamous fake hand. The evaluator will feed a starving (or slightly recovered from starving) dog, then push a fake arm into the dish, pul the food a way and harass the dog until it bites the hand. An dthen they euthanize the dog because of a stupid evaluator.

There are the confiners. They feed the dog in a crate for the rest of the dog's life. Not bad. Dog isn't bothered, people are safe. A great solution for a house with kids.

There is training that doesn't harass and isn't aggressive. You use your dog's obedience training. You give the "leave it" command and the dog stops eating. With most dogs, it is all you need. If I have to go need our dogs' food, such as refilling the water bowl while they are eating, I give the leav it command, the dog stops eating. I touch it on the back of the neck gently - if the dog is going to be aggressive I've got my hand either on scruff or the atlas bone and can point teeth away from me. But usually the dog backs up slightly and I reach over. Because I've never harassed my dog's over food or water, they trust me. I do not take food away as a rule. If I have to, I exchange for higher value food. 

If a dog is more aggressive, they get a "leave it", "back" so they walk several steps backwards, "sit" and stay. If becomes an obedience exercise with the reward of getting the food again. I think you should teach these behaviors away from the food dish. Then do it over an empty food dish. After your dogs sit/stays, then reward with 1 kibble in the dish. Repeat. Yah, I know like 100x a day! After a week, you can reward with 3 kibbles, 5 kibbles. Pretty soon it's your own little suppertime ritual, back up and sit = get food.

If you leave it training is good, your dog will SPIT things out of its mouth. The first time my mpoo got into something (a little piece of plastic), I didn't go chase him down and stick my hand down his throat. I said "out" - the word I use for leave it - and it FLEW out of his mouth, about 18 inches! Good puppy! I don't take toys, food, even forbidden chew bits from my dogs now that I've gotten good at out training. Just that little leave it command can save heartache and bloodshed.


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## tortoise (Feb 5, 2012)

Fluffyspoos said:


> Oh no ): I've always conditioned my puppies to get used to my hands being in their food/chews while they're young, letting them know no matter where I'm at or how close, they still get it.
> 
> Vienna, on the other hand, has some food aggression, I adopted her at about 2 years old. In fact the only time she's really nailed me (yeah she bit me good, never shared it here) was when I was pulling her off of Vegas's food. I now give a verbal command 'Leave it!' and she'll back off of anything. I'm not sure that'll work in your position though?
> 
> Some of the other members may have better advice.


You give great advice. I just use a lot more words.


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## CT Girl (Nov 17, 2010)

Can you give us a little background on Lucy? How old is she, how long have you had her ...


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## tortoise (Feb 5, 2012)

The cause of aggression does not change the way it is addressed.


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## Fluffyspoos (Aug 11, 2009)

Speaking of a good leave it, when I got Cairo he was darting after anything that was dropped on the floor; lint, lettuce, pills.. I knew I needed to get him to stop before he got something poisonous. To make him stall long enough, I dropped jalapenos on purpose, or something with a little tobasco on it, he would pause after a couple 'lessons' then I would 'Leave it!' then treat.

Leave it was easier with the standards because I would click right after and that got their attention, but Cairo was so food focused that I needed something to make him think first. His leave it is starting to get really solid now at 5 1/2 months, I haven't made him leave his food alone or a bone yet, I'm treating him while he's eating still (treats while eating a treat! Yeah hands around food!)

You just need to find what works for your specific dog, there's no universal training method that works for everyone.

ETA: In the meantime while you're figuring things out, I would suggest feeding your girl in her crate, or in a closed room. To slow down her feeding you can try spreading her food out on a cookie sheet.


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## MrsKaia (Dec 3, 2011)

Maybe a trade will work with Lucy. It worked for us. Cal had resource guarding issues. No bowl aggression though. We tried correcting and claiming and what not. All that didn't work for us. At some point we started approaching him (not head on) with pieces of raw meat (or dried (whatever yummy was at hand)), which he would only get if he didn't offer any weird looks or growls. We did not want to take his food, and he didn't have to give it up. We just wanted to be able to come close without him growling. Looking back on how things developed, I think with him it was mainly a trust issue (he's 4.5 and he's only been with us for 15 months). As trust grew (which took a good 10 months), resource guarding issues started to disappear.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

If you view this as resource guarding, rather than food aggression, you may find it less upsetting and easier to get on the right track to work on it. 

I did two things with mine - one was to keep adding more good stuff to the bowl, so that me being near was a predictor of good stuff for poodles. The other (not during meals) was to teach both Leave and Swapsies - offering a higher value toy or treat in exchange for whatever they had, and then - whenever possible - giving them back the original as well. For leave I used a really rather boring dog biscuit, let them see it, then put my foot on it until the dog briefly backed away, then rewarded with chicken or sausage. Once they had grasped the principle I introduced the Leave cue.

I also feed my two well apart, after Sophy made it very clear she found it stressful to have Poppy hovering over her while she ate!

I think confrontational methods can backfire very badly - don't be tempted down that route!


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## LucyTheComadrita (Jan 16, 2012)

CT Girl said:


> Can you give us a little background on Lucy? How old is she, how long have you had her ...


Lucy is 8 months old, and we have had her since she was 8 weeks old.


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## LucyTheComadrita (Jan 16, 2012)

Fluffyspoos said:


> Speaking of a good leave it, when I got Cairo he was darting after anything that was dropped on the floor; lint, lettuce, pills.. I knew I needed to get him to stop before he got something poisonous. To make him stall long enough, I dropped jalapenos on purpose, or something with a little tobasco on it, he would pause after a couple 'lessons' then I would 'Leave it!' then treat.
> 
> Leave it was easier with the standards because I would click right after and that got their attention, but Cairo was so food focused that I needed something to make him think first. His leave it is starting to get really solid now at 5 1/2 months, I haven't made him leave his food alone or a bone yet, I'm treating him while he's eating still (treats while eating a treat! Yeah hands around food!)
> 
> ...


Thank you, Fluffyspoos. Your suggestion is great, and I'll start utilize it with Lucy today.


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## LucyTheComadrita (Jan 16, 2012)

tortoise said:


> This is something you will find huge division in dog trainers, shelters, owners.
> 
> There are the harassers. Now these people make me really angry! A perfect example is the rescue/animal cops type shows on TV and they will sho dogs being evaluated with the infamous fake hand. The evaluator will feed a starving (or slightly recovered from starving) dog, then push a fake arm into the dish, pul the food a way and harass the dog until it bites the hand. An dthen they euthanize the dog because of a stupid evaluator.
> 
> ...


tortoise, your advice is greatly appreciated. The "leave it" command training is so important I'll start doing it with Lucy ASAP. Hope someday we'll master it so well she'll spit things out of her mouth on command (dare to dream :heh


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

Ah - 8 months! Adolescence strikes ...


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## Panda (Jan 7, 2010)

To teach Panda drop it I would give him a toy, and then hold a treat under his nose and as soon as he dropped what he was holding to get the treat I would say drop it and give him the treat.....repeat He picked it up quickly, then soon you can start saying drop it and see if he drops the item, if he does he gets a treat, if he doesnt, repeat more until he gets it.

For leave it (stop going for what your going for), I hold a treat in my closed hand, he will try get it to start with, as soon as he pulls his head away for a second I open my hand and he gets the treat. When he gets this add the command, then start getting your hand closer to the floor and start slowly opening your hand bit by bit so they leave the treat, give them a treat with your other hand. Then start putting the treat on the floor, eventually progress to throwing the treat past them etc etc.

Panda learnt drop it and leave it in about 15-20 mins this way. It is a very quick, reward based method for teaching both commands.

To teach Panda not to growl at me when he had something, to start with I would just sit on the floor near him (as close as he would tolerate) and ignore him. Then I would very slowly move a hand a bit closer, edge a bit closer etc. All at his pace. Eventually I got to being able to stroke him when he had prized possessions, and then touching them (not taking away to start with), then moving to taking away and giving back, then now I can take anything away. Occasionally if I felt it was needed when he was a pup I would give him a gentle poke and say AH! so he knew this wasnt acceptable behaviour but you can do it entirely by slowly moving closer etc too. Maybe throwing them a really tasty treat too.


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## Rowan (May 27, 2011)

I used the same tactics as *Panda *described above with my diabetic rescue poodle who had resource guarding issues. He was blind (until his cataract surgery) and had few teeth but could guard a bone or bowl of food with the best of them. 

I taught him to "leave it" by offering higher value treats as a trade. 

Good luck! You're doing the right thing by addressing the problem early on.


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## tortoise (Feb 5, 2012)

I teach the leave it / out in tug play. (out means "out of your mouth") I get into tug play, then stop and hold the tug completely still. The dog will be confused, toy isn't fun and the dog will let go. When it does, click and start playing again. The dog learns to let go without conflict. 

I have not have problems expanding the leave it to... everything else. I learned this method from Mike Ellis. I love it, love the results.

Another useful thing to train is a food refusal, there's the dropped or thrown food refusal, the stay next to a plate of food, and the food retrieve (hard!). You were talking about having problems with treats coming out of a puzzle toy and it reminded me of some thrown retrieve training. You collect soda bottle caps and hold treats in your hands until your hands stink. Handle the bottle caps in your hands as if they are treats. You need to be aware of how you hold treats and mimic yourself. Your dog thinks you have treats. Drop some. Viola - treats disappeared. Use the leave it or attention command, and then reward with food. Are you following me? The high-value item your dog wants to guard turns out to be nothing. Your dog loses attention in them and gets a reward. Then switch to low value food - celery works great. This time drop celery, dog loses interest and reward with high value reward. From here it goes fast. Eventually the leave-it item will be higher value than the reward.


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## LucyTheComadrita (Jan 16, 2012)

Thanks everyone, all the advice so far is really helpful in getting our training started. Will update as soon as we progress.


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## muffin (Oct 15, 2011)

That is all some good advice! I am totally going to start doing some of that! Sounds like you have already come up with a plan, but I figure I'll share my experience with food aggression since I didn't see this method listed on here:

When I was 9 or 10 years old my first dog decided to be food aggressive one day and I remember bawling my eyes out while I sat with her, with a pile of food bunched up in my shirt as I fed her one piece at a time into her food bowl. I did this at least a couple dozen times, then I began to drop two pieces, take one out and let her eat the other one. Then I dropped three pieces, took one out, etc, etc. I would leave my hand resting on the rim of the bowl as she was eating. Eventually I dropped a handful of food and took a good pinch out while she was eating it. Within minutes, I was able to grab her bowl from her, grab all the food out, push her away from her food, anything I wanted. One day. One sitting. And she was fixed- she never showed anymore signs of food aggression again. I'm not sure if it was the actual training that worked, or if I just made her feel bad seeing the pitiful little girl trying so desperately to be welcomed around her food bowl LOL. Either way, it was never an issue again.


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## JE-UK (Mar 10, 2010)

Ah, the joy of the adolescent poodle!

When you think about it, it is absolutely adaptive for a dog to guard resources; her genes are telling her that food might be scarce and she had better hang onto what she has!

I think of it as changing the way the dog FEELS about hands near her food. It's good to train a leave it, that's an extremely useful skill for the dog, but you can also work on changing her emotional response.

I'd start by giving her the usual dinner, then halfway through, toss a chunk of something REALLY GOOD in or near her bowl, then walk away. Roast chicken, chunk of sausage, a chunk of smelly cheese ... something she doesn't usually get.

Progress to tossing and NOT walking away. Then progress to shorter distances. Then (assuming she is starting to look at your approach eagerly) progress to placing the goodie in her bowl and walking away. Then to placing something in her bowl and standing nearby. All you are trying to convey is that your presence is not a threat to her dinner. 

My dog has never shown any signs of any discomfort when I'm near him when he is eating, but I STILL will (once a week or so), walk to his bowl and add something really interesting while he's eating. 

Once the dog sees you aren't a threat, it is sometimes then easier to start working on swapsies, i.e. ask the dog to swap something only mildly interesting for something REALLY interesting.


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## techalum (Jan 4, 2012)

muffin said:


> That is all some good advice! I am totally going to start doing some of that! Sounds like you have already come up with a plan, but I figure I'll share my experience with food aggression since I didn't see this method listed on here:
> 
> When I was 9 or 10 years old my first dog decided to be food aggressive one day and I remember bawling my eyes out while I sat with her, with a pile of food bunched up in my shirt as I fed her one piece at a time into her food bowl. I did this at least a couple dozen times, then I began to drop two pieces, take one out and let her eat the other one. Then I dropped three pieces, took one out, etc, etc. I would leave my hand resting on the rim of the bowl as she was eating. Eventually I dropped a handful of food and took a good pinch out while she was eating it. Within minutes, I was able to grab her bowl from her, grab all the food out, push her away from her food, anything I wanted. One day. One sitting. And she was fixed- she never showed anymore signs of food aggression again. I'm not sure if it was the actual training that worked, or if I just made her feel bad seeing the pitiful little girl trying so desperately to be welcomed around her food bowl LOL. Either way, it was never an issue again.



I did not want my dog to ever be agressive over her food. So I worked on her for about 1 week and never had a problem.

Here is what I did (perhaps unconventional):
I would preprare the food for my spoo and place her bowl on the ground. Before she made it to the bowl, I would be on my hands and knees in front of the food. When she walked over to the bowl and got close to the food, I would push her back without saying a word and still be in front of the bowl. I would do this for several minutes. After the alotted time I would get up and tell her, "Ok". I repeated this for one week. What this taught her was that she was not the alpha dog around that bowl and has to wait her turn. It worked like a champ. I was then able to pick up her bowl, pet her, or anything else I wanted while she was eating. She knew that I was the alpha.
It worked for me. :act-up:


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I think it is important to understand that even the youngest and lowliest pup is allowed by other dogs to protect their food - trying to remove something that the dog already has in its possession is very, very rude according to dog etiquette, and the transgressor will be told so in no uncertain terms. So we are setting out to teach dogs something that - like so many of the behaviours we consider desirable - does not come naturally to them. It is not the dog being bad - it is humans setting rules that are contrary to how dogs think. So we need to provide pretty good motivation when we ask them to play by our rules, rather than the ones they already know. Chicken seems to be sufficient, in most cases!


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## Fluffyspoos (Aug 11, 2009)

Oh my dogs are fully allowed to guard against each other, I don't think one of my dogs should be taking food from another, and they deserve to be nailed in the face for not having doggy manners. Vegas and Vienna have never, ever had a dispute with each other (I swear they're made to be together) but Vienna growls at Cairo all the time, and Vegas will show teeth when he has a bone and Cairo is jumping all over him.

But they're not allowed to have any problems with people around their food.


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## tortoise (Feb 5, 2012)

Techalum - 

Alpha dogs do not pick fights, steal food, or roll other dogs over.

The submissive dog declines to challenge. The submissive dog leaves the food. The submissive dogs rolls over on its own.

Your way may have worked, but your reasoning is not right. Plus, you are lucky you didn't get bitten!


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## Fluffyspoos (Aug 11, 2009)

One thing you can also do is having your dog do a sit/stay while you have the food down and you're preparing it. I have an 'Okay!' command after I stand up away from their food. Impulse control is always a good thing to teach imo. I don't think dog crawling over owner to get to food bowl is good doggy manners either.


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## JE-UK (Mar 10, 2010)

fjm said:


> So we need to provide pretty good motivation when we ask them to play by our rules, rather than the ones they already know. Chicken seems to be sufficient, in most cases!


Wise words. All the dogs I know worship at the altar of The Great God Chicken :smile:.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I wonder what the human equivalent would be ... politicians and employers would like us to believe it is money, but I am not entirely convinced of that. Champagne would work for me under many circumstances, or an Audi TT for something really major, but I am not sure I would be prepared to completely change my behaviour - give up wine and chocolate, for example - even for a shiny new car!


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## flyingpoodle (Feb 5, 2012)

fjm said:


> I wonder what the human equivalent would be ... politicians and employers would like us to believe it is money, but I am not entirely convinced of that. Champagne would work for me under many circumstances, or an Audi TT for something really major, but I am not sure I would be prepared to completely change my behaviour - give up wine and chocolate, for example - even for a shiny new car!


LOL! I had food aggression issues with dessert and the last bite! I would save the most perfect delicious bite for last, looking forward to it, and my husband would decide that he wanted just one bite, and that was it. He seriously didn't believe how upset I got! I learned to not place such high value on the last bite, and offer him a bite in the middle, and he learned to take it seriously if I said NO! ('Cause he really didn't believe me those first few times!)

And I remember when I was a kid being upset that I didn't have bedwetting habits to break like my little sis because she got candy for not wetting!


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## tortoise (Feb 5, 2012)

I am also food aggressive. I swear if I was a dog I would have been euthanized.


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## LucyTheComadrita (Jan 16, 2012)

Fluffyspoos said:


> One thing you can also do is having your dog do a sit/stay while you have the food down and you're preparing it. I have an 'Okay!' command after I stand up away from their food. Impulse control is always a good thing to teach imo. I don't think dog crawling over owner to get to food bowl is good doggy manners either.



Lucy actually knows the rules. Before each meal I'll ask her if she's hungry, that's the cue for her to stop whatever she's doing or sit up nicely in the living room to wait for her food. After I prepare and set the bowl down, she'll wait eagerly (the same time licking her lips over and over again) until I say "Go" before she can approach her bowl and start eating. Each meal I'll approach her from the front and slowly put my hand in it (I was told to sporadically do this to prevent ~~ FOOD AGGRESSION). We've been doing this for over 6 months now with every meal (except breakfasts when DH feeds her), no problem. It was just that day with me picking up the cups from the puzzle toy while she was eating out of it.

Maybe I didn't feed her enough? BTW, we give her 1 cup per meal, 3 times a day, I was wondering is it too much or sufficient? 

Thanks again, everyone.

It was fun to get into the subject of "Human Food Aggression"


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## tortoise (Feb 5, 2012)

You can certainly try feeding a little more if she is slender. There was some research a few years back that found increasing a dog's food by 1/2 cup (I wished they said by percent!) improved aggression - no just food aggression too!

If she's chubby you probably don't want to try it. 

ETA: I was feeding my mpoo puppy that amoung before I switched him to raw. I can help you check calroic requirement and intake if you would like.


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