A Quick Note on Resource Guarding

Our new foster dog, Stitch, has some issues with resource guarding. We generally give our dogs rawhides in the evenings, and have never had a problem before. Once Stitch came into our house, it was apparent that a problem could develop! He would begin growling and getting very agitated if a dog was moving across the room, not even looking at him or approaching him. I can only imagine what would happen if one of my dogs did actually approach him or get close.

Stitch has never shown resource guarding signs toward humans, so I don't see it is a serious issue, but it could be bad if he displays that behavior to an intolerant dog who may "call him out" on it. Also, to help his chances of fitting in with a higher percentage of families, we would like to eliminate or greatly reduce this behavior. Luckily none of my dogs did approach him, they just kind of rolled their eyes at him and walked away ;-P

Because I love it when my foster dogs leave my house as close to perfect as they can be, I started looking into resource guarding. I found out that the best way to reduce resource guarding reactions is to take away the prize, whatever is worth guarding. In Stitch's case, the object was rawhides. So whenever he would display growling and barking at the other dogs across the room, I'd take away the rawhide. I add a "No" in there, since that's my marker word for an undesired behavior. About a minute later, I gave his rawhide back (after making him sit, of course ;-). As soon as he growled, I took it away again. (This would obviously be a little different if he was guarding against humans as well.) I continued giving Stitch 2nd chances, and about 2 weeks later he hasn't growled at any of my dogs during rawhide time in quite awhile. He'll even eat his rawhide on the same bed as the other dogs.

I'm so amazed at his progress, he's really a quick learner! Stitch probably didn't have a serious or dangerous case of resource guarding, so if you feel like your dog may bite you or seriously injure one of your dogs, please seek professional help. But this does show what a little consistency and some clear rules can do for you! We had a clear "bad" behavior, and a clear consequence to the behavior (losing the rawhide), and Stitch figured out very quickly what the boundaries are.

My trainer did say that dogs are allowed to defend their rawhides (or whatever) if another dog directly approaches them and challenges them for it, so that's the caveat. It's fairly obvious when a dog is challenging another, they walk right up and get very close. The other dog may even growl or bark. But a dog minding his own business across the room is not fair game. And, of course, you are allowed to get as close as you want, and even take away the item without your dog so much as batting an eyelash.

Have a happy and safe holiday season!