How to STOP food aggression/ Resource Guarding in dogs

Truly Excellent information....I've paid many trainers to help with aggression/resource guarding problems, they all said he can't be helped & wearing a muzzle in public is essential because of the unpredictability of the triggers that set off aggression! I signed up for your Aggressive Dog training video course & have turned his life around, huge progress. This video using the remote collar is the best follow up to your video training course; this enables the commands to continue when he's in the house off leash. Thanks again Tom

Thanks Tom, another good one! I recently adopted a GSD who was also very under weight and was starting to exhibit resource guarding with his food bowl. Thankfully, he’s VERY trainable and responding very well to “wait” before releasing him to have his meal. Always enjoy your videos!

Thanks for a video on resource guarding because I think this problem can get out of control.

thank you Tom!!

Thank you, Tom, this was helpful. I'd love to see more of these videos if possible. I appreciate your approach.

Thanks for another more in-depth walk through video. So helpful!

I fixed my dog's food aggression by following the advice from one of your other videos. In your other video, you said there is a difference between whether it is their food and you want to take it or your food and you are sharing it. Of course, I did not want to take his food. I just wanted to be able to walk past him safely while he was eating. He is a German Shepherd/Malinois mix that I got from animal control. I did not know he was Malinois when I got him. He is just wild and bites all the time, so I did DNA testing to find out what I was dealing with. The trainer that I took him to said to yank on the leash and show him who's boss! That did not work. He only snarled more and I can't blame him. I did not want to do that to him. After watching your other video, I started having his food bowl in my hand and giving him a small pat on the head before setting it down. I gradually work up to more pats and petting before giving him his food. Now I set his food down and he (happily) waits for his petting and rubs before he even starts to eat. I walk past while he is eating and give him a little pat on the side. Thank you so much for your videos! I have been watching them for a long time. He still has fear aggression and I have to watch him carefully when I have kids and grandkids over, but we are getting better!

Can you do a video on kennel training an adult dog who exhibits aggressive behavior towards the kennel door & doesn't like remaining in the kennel?

As always, very clear and detailed instructions, and I appreciate how frank you are in recommending that owners work with a professional on resource guardian issues. Again we see how important it is to be patient and consistent with your dog. Thank you!

Awesome video I've spent a lot on training what worked watching videos thank you Mr Tommy Davis you are very knowledgeable in dog training

Ty.. appreciate this..

Great info Tom. Thank you.

I'm glad you made this video it reminds me of my transformation from a nobody to good home, $34k monthly and a good daughter full of love.

I have no dog currently but I want a dog. I have learn that before the possessing problem can be sealed before it appears, like teach leave it with rewards. Thank you

Thanks for the great video! Do you or anyone have any additional tips or ideas for helping a dog who resources against other dogs but not humans?

Thanks, Great training video

Such a helpful video! Thank you

Tom, you are incredible! What a sweet dog. Well done!

Omg finally ❤

Thank you! So helpful!!

Any tips on stopping resource guarding between dogs? One of my dogs will growl and sometimes snap at the other dogs if there is food or if she's on the bed

Do you think there is a difference to the dog when you say Good compared to when you say Good come or Good leave it? Like you asked the dog to leave it and sometimes you just said Good and rewarded and then sometimes you said Good Leave it and then rewarded. When you add Good come or Good sit compared to just saying Good do you think that helps the dog understand the behavior better?

God bless!

This is great. ❤

Why are you using the pager instead of the stim?

What if this aggression is only when there is another dog? Food or toys? Most often the other dogs are my sister's toy Yorkie n her fiancé cattle dog. But she'll fight any dog over food or toys.

I trained the aggression out of my pitbull when I adopted him. A lot of people will disagree with my methods but they work. l traumatized my dog for being aggressive. I would scream to the top of my lungs and I put him on the ground. Went full psycho every time. And guess what? He doesn’t poop in the house anymore, he’s not aggressive, and he respects me as his owner. And the best part is that I don’t have to worry about him biting somebody when I take him out to the park. Because he is terrified that I will lose my shit.

My 14 month old Australian shepherd knows heel, break, sit, down and leave it and interacts with me on walks until the moment there’s another dog and he blows his lid and it’s the only thing I have not been able to correct. His barking in the house I was able to correct but I just can’t figure out what to do with his reactivity to other dogs. This is also a dog who plays with two dogs twice his size.

Perfect timing! I’m currently working with a young rescue with mild resource guarding issues. We are doing almost the exact same thing and this video will be a great addition to what we are currently doing! Thanks for such awesome free content!

What about a dog that does not resource guard against me at all, but has started doing it around the cats and other dogs that he is buddies with? He's fine until there is food/treats or a bone around -- or even his favorite toy. He's a 3 year old 13 lb dachshund so he's not a beast (lol), but they can be fierce. I don't him to start biting to protect his prized possessions. He understands "leave it" and "drop it" - so how do I work on this with other animals? We live with the cats - and we stay with the dogs when we dog sit them or when their humans are watching my dog when I'm away (we trade).

Thank you for putting this out!

How should i do this with a dog that resource guards me from my other pets? She resource guards food, my room, some toys from my cats. Also when I'm petting her and one of my cats approaches me she growls and guards me from them. When it's time to eat and I'm preparing her food she locks onto the cats and if any comes close while I'm making the food she will attack them. A few days ago she grabbed the cat's neck and shook him hard, i thought it was over for him, but he only lost some fur by miracle. That was when i was in the kitchen getting her food ready and the cat walked by.

I have advised lots of people that one of the first things you teach a puppy is that you can take their food away from them at any time. Foolish people want to argue about that. It’s very important that you can take anything from your dog at any time. What if they pick up something that’s potentially harmful. Do you want to fight them over it at the risk of getting bit ?

Thank you for this pod casting. It provided me with some useful tips on how to deal with a new addition to our family.
We have two dogs and recently took in an abandoned hunting dog. He had been left out on his own for over a month before animal control picked him up, and then we adopted him. Understandably he has resource guiding issues. We currently have to crate him at feeding time so our other two dogs are able to eat their meal. I'm hoping he will eventually be able to eat with the our other dogs.
Thank you so much for your podcasts. I really appreciate them. They have been extremely helpful.

Poetic warrior 10

Tom, I'm helping a friend train her dog using your ecollar but we are gaving a hard time determing if she can feel the shock we have gotten up to 9 with seemingly no reaction and she has really long hair so we cant see a neck twitch and are afraid to keep trying HELP

Obviously this example is different as its an adult dog. My way of ensuring there is no resource guarding from puppy stage is touching their food and head while they eat. I do this every meal time with my puppies from day one. Same with playing with toys - tug etc, i pat their head constantly while playing. They get used to this and i have never had a problem with resource guarding from any of my dogs. Hopefully this is useful to someone. Again i stress that this is with puppies as a preventative measure, not adult dogs who already have resource guarding issues

This is very informative! Our resource guarding is between dogs. They eat separately but if there is a tiny crumb and they both see it its a death attack! They freeze abd launch. We have learned the signs. We keep the 14 month old on a leash.

My girlfriend has a black German Shepherd Anatolian mix. It is not known of parents behaviors. " Bear " is very food aggressive and afraid I think. What I think doesn't matter. However, my girlfriend says Anatolians can't be trained about resource guarding
. She feeds the dogs in separate areas. She now has Bear and a beautiful Pug now. She is training Bear for a Service Dog. He seems afraid of being in public. Is that true about Anatolians/mix?.

Agree with much of what Tom taught. However, create a solid & consistent Leave It by NEVER allowing your dog the item/s you told him/her to leave. The Leave It items (say treats) can be picked up, put away for a few minutes, then you can bring it out later for a treat reward. By some times allowing a dog to eat the Leave It items will create confusion/anticipation because it’s an intermittent reinforcement and instead of a dog totally ignoring the Leave It item/s the dog is anticipating/hoping that maybe this time I will get to eat the Leave It item/s. The saying let your No be No - not maybe, same with Leave It.

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

You late the best , thank you Tom 🐾🩵🐾

I am a young woman currently living with her family. I have been recently looking into getting a puppy, but I would like some advice about a good breed. I am looking for a dog that-
Has a lot of energy.
Will be by my side 24/7 as a reliable companion.
I would like a dog that could get up early with me to go for runs/long walks/bike rides.
A dog that I would be able to bring to the farm with me every morning to help me out with the small farm animals aka. herding.
A dog that, after all that, would still like to play and train for 1, 2, maybe even three hours, and then come back to the farm with me in the evening.
I am also looking for a dog I can train to a very high standard, and besides all that it would be nice to have a dog that could watch my back and make someone think twice before approaching me with the wrong intention.
I am willing to put in the work. I have had experience/training with a 100lb German Shepherd Rhodesian Ridgeback mix from the shelter, who is currently 8 years old. Very intelligent, sometimes stubborn, l would like a dog in the 60-80lb range.
What would you recommend?

Goat

Anything that falls on the floor or when I bring in the mail, changes into a threatening dog. Lip curls up, barks where her pink mouth & tongue becomes blue. She will go to her cage with me faking to give her a treat. (No treat for bad behavior) . I have to leave her there until she wires down to her old self. It could be a pen, pencil, kitchen towel, paper, nail file, anything that falls. She does hold back from attacking me since she did once a year ago. (67lb all muscle ACD).
When she started to challenge me ( the moment I got up, she would lay in my spot refusing me to sit back down with curled lip and teeth). I had no choice but to make her sleep in her cage at night. That eliminated that problem. She will still lay in my spot, but moves so I can sit down. I can't get her not to sit on the couch. She used to bully me, lay on top of me to pin me down, tried to push me off. It was a fight every day. Finally after a month fighting and a bad bite from her when ill, I said freak it.
She is stubborn and will not obey unless she sees a treat in hand. Honestly, she is the worst dog I ever owned in over 50 years. I never experienced a dog that refused to be trained. A well known local trainer said he would work with her for a month, but wouldn't guarantee she would behave at home. Instead, I put up a 7 foot block fence in my back yard. She also wears a muzzle everytime she goes outside. Without it, she goes into an eating frenzy ... rocks, twigs, plants, leaves, paper, etc. I removed all toxic plants. Lol. Sharing in hopes of helping others who think of getting an ACD, to think twice and pass selecting another breed.

My dog was resource guarding as a puppy. He’s a lot better now but I always have to be cautious. He had to learn that he will get an exchange for something better.

I just went through a bad case of this last night with my PitBull/Cane Corso/ Staffy /Rottweiler His name is Zeus. Positive qualities: beautiful looking, highly intelligent, protective, loving and a velcro dog that won't leave my side and highly trainable. Downside: extreme resource guarding over bones and raw food especially ground beef and chicken quarters. I watch a lot of breeders of bully dogs and Corso and they mostly feed raw so I wanted to introduce raw feeding to my dog. He has eaten raw on and off during his 4 years of life but now I wanted to be more consistent since it seems breeders feed raw especially chicken quarters which are affordable. I also feed him Orijen Tundra which is an excellent kibble and I only wanted to supplement with chicken quarters and ground beef. Zeus loves the raw chicken, turkey, ground beef, raw eggs, and sardines but does not like kibble which is a very expensive meat based kibble. I tried pouring bone broth over the kibble he still did not want it. So last night I used a blender and put into it 2 cups of the highly nutritious kibble and mixed it with bone broth until it was a paste and then I mixed that paste with the ground turkey and ground beef. And he loved it. I also gave him a chicken quarter and some beef bones on the side. Sounds great right because he devoured the food. Huge issue he SNAPPED whenever I or my son went near his crate with the raw food. He refused to eat the chicken quarter in his crate and wanted to drag it around and growled and snapped if we came anywhere near him. I finally coaxed him outside and he dragged the chicken quarter with him. I was thinking great he will eat this outside instead he tried to bring it back in so I had to get a huge beef bone to distract him and he came into the house and left the chicken quarter behind which I got rid off. He even barked at the cat because the cat walked past his crate of the raw food. I don't have the monies to take him to a behaviorist to deal with the aggression based resource guarding. So what I did was to get rid of ALL the raw food I had for him that I had made into weekly meals. No more chicken, beef, or turkey. And the funny thing is I had every intention at some point to do raw but now I am done with him. I will continue to feed the expensive kibble with feeding much of the meal out of my hand and turning into a game. He will still get these huge bones to chew on but no raw food diet that encourages guarding and aggression. This is a very serious situation for me and I don't want to have to put him down so if by changing his diet to good quality Origen kibble along with their wet food and a topper I am saving his life because if he redirects on me or my adult son with a bite I will have him euthanized. He already redirected on my son when my son was kissing him near his mouth and Zeus nipped but what happened was horrible sending my son to the hospital. At the time when my son and I got back from the ER I said if you want this dog put down it is your choice. My son and I had already had to put down another Pitbull very sweet when she got very old and had joint issues and it devastated us. So my son wanted to give Zeus another chance even though Zeus behavior landed my adult son in the hospital. And this is why I take his resource guarding seriously. He is a huge dog almost as big as a Corso. We all do love Zeus very much but he is never going to take over my house and I will put him down. So if by taking away a raw food diet and just using highly nutritious kibble and wet food that is highly nutritious that is what I will do. Also he is not getting any more scraps from the table. Sorry for the long comment but this video just hit different after what I just went through last night with my dog. I don't know how breeders can feed raw to dozens of dogs with no issues but I am not a breeder and I will leave raw feeding too the professionals. Also I don't know if his resource guarding includes my home because he does amazing watchdog/guard dog duties like I have never ever seen in any breed of dog. because he is a combination of multiple guard dogs including, American Pitbull, Cane Corso, Staffy, Bull dog and Rottweiler when looking at him you can see all these different breeds and his intelligence levels is shown through all these breeds. He is also a very healthy dog because of all these mixtures. Mixed breeds are the heathiest dog breeds. He is just a very serious dog when it comes to protection and guarding. At the same time he is very playful and loving but the food aggression I cannot deal with.

One of the most serious cases of resource guarding I’ve experienced has been specifically with hunting scent hounds. After working with so coonhounds that had it towards food, I’ve noticed that these dogs were all byb for their hunting ability and temperament didn’t matter because they were kept outdoors so no one lives in a house with them. So they bred this drive for food to make them work..but it backfires because the hounds will fight each other over food. Which goes against what they are bred to do..which is to live and work with other hounds.
Now I’ve also worked with coonhounds that were ethically bred..dual purpose, health tested and temperament tested…and surprise..no food aggression there.

Hard pumpkin 46

This pupper is not a good example of resource guarding. I've worked with aggressive dogs that draw blood and go after people, both small and large breeds. These tactics maybe too light for an actual aggressive dog. They need to be worn out from exercise first before you try to train them. Positive reenforcement is good for teaching basic commands and start building a relationship with an aggressive dog before you work the aggressiveness out of them. But, at somepoint things will come to a head with the dog and you will have a battle of wills that can get physical. You can't be afraid or back down when this happens. Each dog is different with what needs to be done to break the behavior. Some need to be wrestled to their backs and pinned until the fight is out of them, some need a scruff grab, an ear bite, etc, but never hit or kick. Sometimes the battle can last hours. If this type of situation scares you, seek professional help instead of trying it yourself. Your fear will only reenforce the dog's aggressive behavior. You can't be afraid to get clawed or bitten to help an aggressive dog.

Wondering head 99

Excellent video!
Thank you.