Protective of food

[FabiolaMoronari]

Please need help.

My 4 months goldendoodle has been too protective of his food, he is very nice in all areas but that part.

After putting his bowl down and if he thinks we are too close of the bowl he growls and gets mad.

We already tried two steps like putting the food bowl on our lap while he eats and while he is eating we called him and give him a treat.

Today was the worst,  my daughter throw to him some treats and she went to get one that she thought he did not see and he bite her!

Pleas please I need help to fix that.

[Adrienne]

Hello Fabiola,

Welcome to the forums. 

It would be important to provide at this point your puppy with a quiet place to eat so to start establishing a history of trust. Dogs who guard food are stressed dogs who only want one thing: to eat their meal in peace. So make sure the area is quiet and without loud noises and that it's as stress-free as possible, so that your pup can learn to relax. No other pets around him, no children around, just a quiet place where he can eat in peace without feeling stressed. 

If your pup has been resource guarding for some time, it may take time for him to learn to relax because growling and threatening to bite is a behavior that gets reinforced every time the person backs away (which one should always do, considering that growling is a behavior one should treasure). If you have children in your home and your puppy appears aggressive,  ensure your child will not approach him, or even better, crate your puppy during meal time or let him eat in a separated room, always ensuring he has a quiet, safe place to dine.

This is called management and the goal is to allow your pup to relax, release a good portion of stress hormones, while also preventing him from rehearsing the problematic behavior. The more dogs rehearse behaviors, the more they tend to put roots and become difficult to eradicate. Management would also entail not letting your child approach your dog when there are treats on the floor or anything your puppy finds valuable.  

While management can help keep everybody safe up to a certain level, a more direct approach on tackling this issue would require behavior modification. For resource guarding, a good behavior modification program would entail desensitization and counterconditioning. 

In desensitization, the goal is exposing dogs to situations that have made them reactive in the past in such a way that they are no longer feeling much stressed. You can read about desensitization here:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/desensitization/

Counterconditioning  instead entails changing a dog's emotional response. From dreading something, through positive associations, we make dogs look forward to things because we have made the activity so rewarding. You can read about counterconditioning here:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/counterconditioning/

The whole goal is to ensure the pup is put into a stress-free environment as possible, through very gradual and pleasant exposures, always ensuring that the puppy is under threshold. Here is a read about threshold levels in dogs:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/

In order for behavior modification to be effective, it is crucial that we monitor a dog's body language carefully, always ensuring he's not put into stressful situations and at the same time we need to make the process as successful and safe as possible. This requires a certain level of skill considering that we can make behaviors worse if we allow too much stress to seep through the process and fail to progress at the pup's pace and level of comfort. As we go through the process, we need to gradually insert new parameters always ensuring to not raise the bar too high, too quickly. This takes several judgement calls. I will provide here just an example of behavior modification for a light case of food guarding,  but please work along with a behavior professional to play it safe, also considering the fact that it sounds like you have a young child in the home and your puppy has a history of biting. Your puppy is young and at a delicate stage of development so we want to do everything right. 

Example of behavior modification for light food guarding:

After about one week of your puppy getting to eat in a quiet place, every now and then, make it a habit of walking by your puppy as he's eating from his bowl, at a distance where your puppy is under threshold, tossing some goodies as you walk by. Make it clear that the treats occur contingent upon you walking by. Once you pass your puppy, no more treats.

Rinse and repeat several times until you start noticing what's known as a  conditioned emotional response. In other words, repetition after repetition, your puppy starts looking forward to you approaching rather than dreading it. One clear signal is your puppy stopping to eat to look at you with a happy, calm face in anticipation (not the hard stare and freezing of a dog who is resource guarding).Some pups will even demonstrate a tail wag!

As you progress, approach from different angles and decrease distance gradually always making sure your puppy stays under threshold. Also, have other family members practice, but always under the guidance of a professional for safety.

Another option is to fill your puppy's bowl with a small portion of food. Once done, go grab a handful of more food and fill the bowl up. Then add a little more, until you're done with your pup's ratio. End the session by tossing a treat at a distance as you pick up the food bowl. The goal here is once again, to teach your pup that when you come near his food bowl, it's not your intent to remove food, by actually add. 

Setbacks and Successes

In the best case scenarios, behavior modification goes smoothly with an upward trend, but setbacks are not uncommon. Perhaps you got too close and got a growl or you came from an unexpected angle and your dog got stressed. In such cases, its important knowing what to do.

In general, when we go back some steps, it's sign that we have worked at a level our dog wasn't ready yet for. This means it's time to evaluate the situation that created the setback, go back some steps and try splitting the exercise into smaller steps and sometimes even get a bit creative.

For example, if your puppy did fine with you tossing treats, but regressed when your husband tossed treats, it's sign your dog wasn't ready to progress to that level. Your would therefore need to think what to do in this case. Perhaps, you can walk by your dog with your husband on the farthest side and practice with him next to you until you get that CER and then let him gradually do more and more, or perhaps you can have your husband deliver higher value treats, or you can start him from a farther distance. Your dog behavior professional can guide you through the best options to overcome any hurdles through careful in-person observations and tips based on your dog's individual case.

The Importance of Trading

Every time your puppy has an item in his mouth that he shouldn't have, avoid chasing (which may encourage a mean version of the "keep away" game) but rather trade it with something that you are absolutely sure your puppy finds it higher in value. For example, if he got a hang of a sandwich wrapper, trade it offering in exchange some high-value treats such as as dog cookie or a bully stick. Toss the cookie or bully stick the opposite way, so you can safely retrieve the sandwich wrapper.

The goal of this is to convince your puppy that when you approach him and he has something in his mouth, you aren't planning to snatch it away, but rather you are trading for something far better! Once your puppy learns this valuable lesson, you can introduce the verbal cue "drop it" and even pronounce it from a distance even before showing what you are trading it for. The behavior when well trained can become almost reflexive! Here's a drop it guide:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/drop-it/

You may find these threads on resource guarding interesting, but please consider that every dog is different and may therefore need a different protocol:

Please note: Accidents can always happen when doing behavior modification. Your behavior professional can help you find the safest ways to work with your pup.

Disclaimer: behavior modification comes with risks. If your puppy or dog is showing aggressive behaviors, please play it safe and consult with a force-free dog behavior professional for safety and correct implementation.