August 04, 2011

Our 8 week old puppy is a voracious eater and is growling and guarding his food. Should we correct him for this?

Full Question:
I recently purchased a couple of your training streaming videos (Your Puppy 8 Weeks to 8 Months and Dealing with Dominant & Aggressive Dogs). They are very helpful and we enjoy learning from them, and I'm sure I will be pursuing others over the next several months as we train our little guy.

I recently received my new Malinois puppy and he just turned 8 weeks. He is a voracious eater and is guarding his food and growling. At 8 weeks old should this be corrected and if yes what would you recommend?

Also your puppy video mentioned toy drive and food drive, is one better than the other? Should I be encouraging one over the other for training purposes?

I really appreciate your expertise and would like to get your take...

Thanks,
Robert
Cindy
Cindy Cindy's Answer:
I would not correct an 8 week old puppy for food guarding but would set up the scenario so he didn’t feel the need to guard it. You can hand feed him or give him an empty bowl and add little bits of food by hand so he learns you are not going to take it away. He needs to understand the new rules of the house and this can be done gently through merely manipulating each situation. If you start correcting him for this, you will reinforce yourself as a bully and being unfair (which I know you don’t want).

I’d read the article Ed wrote on The Groundwork to Becoming your Puppy’s Pack Leader and I'd recommend the video Pack Structure for the Family Pet.

You may also want to look over the following:
I would read our biting puppies article. You can read this to get our definition of socializing.

For young puppies, we do all the training with food while playing little chase games with toys separately. I would read our article on training dogs with Markers.

I would then HIGHLY recommend The Power of Training Dogs with Food.

If you can let me know what your ultimate goal with the puppy will be, I can make further suggestions for you. I hope this helps.

Cindy Rhodes
User Response:
Cindy,

This is great information and great starting points… I will review the resources you mentioned below and let you know if I have any more questions.

Also, I really enjoy the training videos, they are extremely helpful and thorough and above all I appreciate the customer service your Leerburg team delivers.

Again thank you.

Robert

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