In b4 getting flamed for my Caesar post: I love dogs and dog psychology, so if anyone does have any tested and effective ways for breaking dogs of food protective aggression, I really do want to know.
So, I personally haven’t had this issue with my dogs but this is what I know about solving resource guarding:
Dogs guard resources because they are insecure. A dog who growls when you approach its bowl of food is afraid that you will take their food away from them, and is warning you. Many people will punish this behavior, which could do one of two things: Either the dog stops growling, and you’ve essentially punished the dog for telling you it is ready to defend its resource, or the dog becomes even more visibly aggressive in defending its resource because you’ve punished it for letting you approach, making it more insecure.
The best way to actually solve resource guarding is classical conditioning; you want to change the dog’s emotional reaction to you being near its resource. So, you play what many call “The Trading Game.” Essentially, you teach the dog to give up something that it values because it will be returned later or replaced with something even higher in value. This teaches them that they don’t have to guard things so carefully and allows them to trust you around the things they value.
This is also just a really good game to play with dogs who don’t have issues with resource guarding, if not to prevent it, but to prepare for a possible situation if they happened to get ahold of something toxic or a choking hazard and you need to take it away.
To everyone interested, here’s another way to handle the situation!
When my 120lbs retreiver (Jeb) was younger he was food protective, but never bit or snapped at us. He did however growl if we got near him with his food. This was a big concern for us because no one wants a 120lbs dog to start getting aggressive, but also we have lots of family with small kids and even smaller dogs that come to visit. We also lived with an aging dog didn’t want Jeb to attack him.
What we did is we practiced taking his food bowl away from, waiting, making him lie down, and then we’d return it to him. We did the same with his favorite toys and large treats that he didn’t eat in one bite. He’s seven-years-old now and we don’t have the same problem anymore.
However he does like to play keepaway with things he steals from us so that Trading Game sounds like a good way to break him of that. … actually Jeb’ll probably just steal things and hold them ransom, knowing him.
Anyway, thanks for sharing, @b3lugas!