May 18, 2011
Our new rescue dog growls when we pet it while its eating. What should we do?
Full Question:
Hello,I enjoy your website a lot and I had a question. We just adopted a 4 month old golden retriever from the humane society 2 days ago. He was picked up as a stray. He seems to be healthy, energetic and very friendly. We've only had him for 2 days so I really havn't had time to do a lot yet, I've been keeping him in a the crate when I'm not playing with him and keeping him on a leash wherever he goes. I know its really early and he barely knows us but this morning he did something I want to get corrected immediately before it becomes an issue. He is very very food motivated, he almost loses his mind when I'm getting his food ready. This morning when I put his food down and started petting him as he was eating, he was growling quite a bit, this is the only agression he has shown, and since he is normally so friendly, it kind of shocked me. I want to take care of this ASAP! I wasn't sure exactly what the best method was for correcting him for this sort of thing.
Thanks,
Bryan
Ed's Answer:
You should not make a big deal about this right now. You don’t know the history on this puppy so it would be unfair to correct the dog for this behavior.
Rather – start to marker train this dog right now. Read my article “The Power of Training Dogs with Markers.” Study the finer points of this article and do it.
Take the dogs daily food ration and divide it up into 3 or 4 portions and do marker training in 3 or 4 training sessions. Teach this dog that getting food from you can be fun and non-stressful. Once you have “charged the mark” (see my article on how to do this) then start to train for looking into your eyes, mark the dog turning to come to you when you call him outside (mark the turn not the point he gets to you), mark the dog learning to sit or down with markers.
After a few days you can mark and then place a small food reward inside the food bowl which you are holding. Let the dog get the reward out of the food bowl. Then you being around the food bowl becomes a positive thing and not a negative stressful problem for the puppy. With only one small high value food reward in the bowl it’s all over before it happens (the size of the food reward is equal to the eraser on a pencil).
When you can’t be there to do this every day - feed the dog in its dog crate. Don’t push this issue of letting it when you feed it right now.
Get my DVD title YOUR PUPPY 8 WEEKS to 8 MONTHS and Basic Dog Obedience.
Good luck.
Kind Regards,
Ed Frawley
Rather – start to marker train this dog right now. Read my article “The Power of Training Dogs with Markers.” Study the finer points of this article and do it.
Take the dogs daily food ration and divide it up into 3 or 4 portions and do marker training in 3 or 4 training sessions. Teach this dog that getting food from you can be fun and non-stressful. Once you have “charged the mark” (see my article on how to do this) then start to train for looking into your eyes, mark the dog turning to come to you when you call him outside (mark the turn not the point he gets to you), mark the dog learning to sit or down with markers.
After a few days you can mark and then place a small food reward inside the food bowl which you are holding. Let the dog get the reward out of the food bowl. Then you being around the food bowl becomes a positive thing and not a negative stressful problem for the puppy. With only one small high value food reward in the bowl it’s all over before it happens (the size of the food reward is equal to the eraser on a pencil).
When you can’t be there to do this every day - feed the dog in its dog crate. Don’t push this issue of letting it when you feed it right now.
Get my DVD title YOUR PUPPY 8 WEEKS to 8 MONTHS and Basic Dog Obedience.
Good luck.
Kind Regards,
Ed Frawley
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