Resource Guarding Info

[Sassysmum]

Resource Guarding.

Using aggression to maintain ownership of an item of value such as food or a favourite toy is known as ‘Resource Guarding’. In the dog world this is a perfectly natural and normal behaviour. However, when a dog demonstrates this type of behaviour towards a person it is seen as unacceptable. This view point is a reasonable one because if a person fails to see the signs or change how they conduct themselves the behaviour can escalate up to and including a bite.

It’s a known fact that all behaviour is directly related to an individuals emotional state, in other words, we act how we feel. With this in mind understanding the emotion behind this type of ‘guarding’ behaviour is vital if we are to implement a successful behaviour modification programme.

In the first instance we need to look at words that have the same meaning as the word guarding, words such as protecting and defending. All of these words relate to an individual fearing a loss of some kind.

Aggression, to varying degrees, is often caused by a dog that is fearful, worried or scared of something.

Here are a few examples:

• Dog growls at strangers when walking on the lead = dog is worried about strangers.
• Dog growls at owners when he is on the sofa = dog is worried about losing his comfy resting place.
• Dog growls and snaps at owner when they approach him whilst he is eating = dog is worried that he will lose his food.

Those of you that feel confident that you can tell if your dog is scared, happy or angry by looking at its body language may argue that it doesn’t look scared when it is guarding its possessions. This is a valid point. The initial moment of fear is generally a very fleeting one but it is this emotion that triggers the defensive/aggressive behaviour. If we can prevent the dog from feeling anxious in the first place the trigger will not be activated.

Resource guarding comes in many forms but this article is going to focus on just 3 of them.

• Toy guarding
• The guarding of stolen items
• Food guarding






Toy Guarding

All dogs should be given the opportunity to play with toys. They help with exercise, training, chewing and the simulation of natural behaviours.
Sometimes however, certain dogs get possessive over their toys when people try to touch them.
The most common response from an owner when this happens is for them to chastise the dog either verbally or physically. Bearing in mind that fear is the underlying emotion driving the dog’s behaviour this approach only makes the situation worse. The dogs fear increases therefore so does the intensity of the dog’s behaviour. In other words this approach is more likely to get a person bitten than cure the problem.

When working towards solving this type of problem the owners approach should be one of confident indifference i.e. make it clear to the dog that you’re not that interested in their smelly slimy toy anyway.

Teaching a dog the ‘take it’ and ‘leave it’ exercise is always a good place to start. If the dog is just a toy guarder then the use of treats only for this exercise is recommended. If you need help with this exercise don’t hesitate to use the contact details listed at the end of this article.

Remembering that the dog fears losing possession of its toy, the owner must (during training) refrain from entering the dog’s personal space in order to obtain its toy. Teaching the dog to ‘retrieve’ (take the toy to the owner) is crucial to success. This is achieved by the owner moving backwards away from the dog whilst encouraging it to come towards them but still keeping hold of the toy. High value treats such as cheese, hotdog pieces or liver etc can be thrown towards the dog as it moves forward to reward its cooperation.

Another way of teaching a retrieve is to play tug of war. This method is very quick and very effective.
Attach a lightweight 4ft lead to the dog’s collar and stand on the other end.
Engage the dog in a game of tuggy. Verbally reward the dog for pulling against you and then suddenly let go of the toy whilst happily telling him that he is very strong and clever. As the lead is under your foot the dog will not be able to run away with the toy. Hold your hand out whilst still using a happy and praising voice and ask the dog if he wants to try his luck again. The first couple of times you might need to encourage him to come towards you by using the lead, but providing you make the game of tuggy fun and exciting AND you let him win, the chances are that he will end up thrusting the toy into your hand in order to have another go.

The most important aspect of this exercise is that the emotion surrounding the whole thing is one of fun, excitement, trust, reward and celebration. It’s all positive and therefore not evoking any kind of fear/defensive behaviour.

Once the dog is happy to push a tug toy into your hand in order to play you are only short steps away from getting the same response with any toy.

The Guarding of Stolen Items

Lots of owners inadvertently teach their dogs to steal things. Their response to the dog running off with a stolen item is to run after them, verbally chastise them and then forcibly remove the item.
The drive for a dog to steal something in the first place is generally due to boredom and/or attention seeking. It’s the dog’s way of saying to the owner “please give me something to do”. The aggression problem arises for the same reason as with toy guarding - fear of punishment and fear of losing possession of the item.

This problem can be prevented by firstly ensuring that the dog is kept adequately occupied. This can be achieved in many different ways, if you are stuck for ideas please don’t hesitate to contact us.
If your dog doesn’t feel the need to steal in the first place all the subsequent problematic behaviours will therefore be avoided.

For those dogs that have become expert stealers and guarders a behaviour modification programme will be required.

The first thing an owner must do if a dog steals something is ask themselves three questions:

1. Is the item dangerous to the dog?
2. Just how valuable is the item to the owner?
3. Is it the end of the world if the dog keeps the item?

Depending on the answers to these questions the owners’ response may differ slightly.

Obviously, if the dog is in danger or the item is of high value to the owner it must be removed from the dog as quickly as possible. With this in mind, avoiding direct confrontation is still a priority. The owner’s response should be to grab some high value food like lumps of cheese or liver or sausage etc and throw pieces of it to the dog in quick succession. As the dog starts to take the food the owner should then throw a handful of the food away from the stolen item and when it moves away to eat it the owner can safely obtain the item.
Any verbal interaction with the dog should be encouraging and rewarded so as not to arouse the fear trigger that has previously been mentioned.

With regard to addressing this issue in a more generalised way there are a few golden rules that need to be remembered.

First and foremost the owner’s verbal response must always be one of almost surprise and praise if they discover that their dog has stolen something.
Some of you may be thinking that this approach would just serve as rewarding the dog for stealing but this is not the case. The main aim is not to trigger the fear response and any form of firm language or physical manipulation will almost certainly do this. By keeping their tone happy and non-confrontational the owner is likely to keep the dog relaxed and therefore relatively close to them. If the owner then casually walks towards the treat cupboard or the fridge whilst congratulating their dog on its trophy the chances are that it will follow them and then drop the item in the expectation of a reward.

It is far better to have a dog that steals things who then immediately seeks out their owner to show them their prize in order to get a reward, rather than having a dog that steals thing’s who then runs off with it and guards it with its life!

This technique will only work however, if from time to time, when the dog steals something of low value or risk the owner completely ignores the incident. The dog needs to know that it doesn’t have direct control over the owner’s attention every time it steals something.

Food Guarding

Food guarding seems to be the one type of aggression towards people that most owners can understand or even tolerate. I believe that we were all told as children at some point or another not to go near a dog whist it is eating.

Food is required in order to stay alive therefore it is very valuable, it is also often the highlight of a dogs day so to have someone interfere with it can cause a great deal of distress to some dogs.

Symptoms of food guarding can include the dog eating faster, freezing over the bowl and staring, growling, lunging, snapping and biting. Ideally an owner should be able to recognise that the dog is feeling uncomfortable in such a situation well before the last three symptoms are displayed and therefore stop their approach and adopt a different strategy.

Although serious, this problem can be overcome with relative ease. It just requires a gentle persistent approach.

The first step is to ensure that the dog is fed on a boring dried food.
The second step is to have a selection of very high value food at your disposal.
The training starts with the owner being a distance away from the dog and its food. As with the rest of this type of training it is still imperative that the dogs fear trigger is not activated. The owners job is to happily call the dogs name and throw a decent sized chunk of high value food as close to the bowl as possible. The food should be thrown whatever the dog’s response to the call might be. This should be done approx three times per meal. When the training gets to the stage where the dog lifts its head out of the bowl on hearing its name in expectation of the food the owner can then take a step towards the dog and then throw the food. This process needs to be built up very slowly, if it is rushed in any way the dog may regress very quickly.


The final aim is for the owner to be able to call the dogs name whilst it is eating and for the dogs head to come happily out of the bowl in expectation of something nice being added to it.

If this has been achieved the dog is associating a good emotion with a person approaching them whilst eating instead of a fearful/defensive one. Therefore the aggressive type behaviour previously witnessed should not be present.

Any form of resource guarding can be difficult to live with but understanding how a dog is feeling at the time, and therefore why it is demonstrating such behaviour goes a long way to giving an owner the inspiration and confidence to work at resolving the issue.


There is one school of thought that states this type of behaviour could be down to a dog showing signs of dominance over its owner. The theory of canine dominance with regard to relationships with people is very much outdated and has been disproved by many well respected canine experts.

[nickynockynoonoo]

Great post. Thanks

[Bonniesmummy]

Originally Posted by Sassysmum

Resource Guarding.

The Guarding of Stolen Items

Lots of owners inadvertently teach their dogs to steal things. Their response to the dog running off with a stolen item is to run after them, verbally chastise them and then forcibly remove the item.
The drive for a dog to steal something in the first place is generally due to boredom and/or attention seeking. It’s the dog’s way of saying to the owner “please give me something to do”. The aggression problem arises for the same reason as with toy guarding - fear of punishment and fear of losing possession of the item.

With regard to addressing this issue in a more generalised way there are a few golden rules that need to be remembered.

First and foremost the owner’s verbal response must always be one of almost surprise and praise if they discover that their dog has stolen something.
Some of you may be thinking that this approach would just serve as rewarding the dog for stealing but this is not the case. The main aim is not to trigger the fear response and any form of firm language or physical manipulation will almost certainly do this. By keeping their tone happy and non-confrontational the owner is likely to keep the dog relaxed and therefore relatively close to them. If the owner then casually walks towards the treat cupboard or the fridge whilst congratulating their dog on its trophy the chances are that it will follow them and then drop the item in the expectation of a reward.

It is far better to have a dog that steals things who then immediately seeks out their owner to show them their prize in order to get a reward, rather than having a dog that steals thing’s who then runs off with it and guards it with its life!

This technique will only work however, if from time to time, when the dog steals something of low value or risk the owner completely ignores the incident. The dog needs to know that it doesn’t have direct control over the owner’s attention every time it steals something.

.

When Bonnie stole things I made mistake of chasing her around for whatever it was but soon learned this made her d it more nad I never won anyway lol... way to fast for me!!
Anyway.. now she steals things but comes to show me what she has, if i say drop 8/10 times she will. ATTENTION SEEKER much lol