I've had my dog since she was 8 weeks old. 3 months ago she started being food protective with other animals. Any advice?

Question

Ed,

    I would like to ask you a question about my 8 month Great Pyr/lab mix. I've had her since she was 8 weeks old. She has been well socialized, gets plenty of exercise, and has been to obedience class. We have a 12 year old Schipperke, and two cats that have been around her since the beginning. 3 months ago she started being food protective with other animals. We no longer give her bones, and we feed her separately from the other animals. At 6 months old we saw the first signs of aggression not related to food, but just the cats and the other dog entering the room. We spoke to our vet who said it may be a pecking order issue, and not to intervene. This seemed to work with the dog, but now the aggression is on the cats. The dog will eye the cats from a distance and start a deep growl as they come near the room. If allowed the dog will chase and attack them. At times if we try to intervene while she is in the "moment" she will turn to us and grab our hand and let go after she realizes what she is doing. It's almost like she is in the attack mode and doesn't realize what and who is grabbing her. She has never bit down hard on us. This behavior usually happens in the evening while winding down and relaxing. We could all be watching tv or reading the paper, and she is laying down and another animal tries to enter the room and she starts to growl and aggressively chase them. We've tried "leave it," and distracting her but she still zero's in on the animal.

    If you have any suggestions for us we would be more than willing to try them. Thanking for your time.

    Jean

Accepted Answer

Your vet gave you bad advice on how to handle this when you first observed the behavior. By NOT intervening, you sent your dog the message that she’s in charge of this scenario. Most vets don’t give good training advice, it’s just not their area of expertise.

Ed has written an article on cats.

I’d take this dogs privileges completely away, start with our groundwork program and Pack Structure for the Family Pet.

She’d be on leash 100% of the time unless she was in a crate or kennel. I would NOT allow any looking at, growling at or chasing of the cats. NOT AT ALL.

I’d recommend Dealing with Dominant & Aggressive Dogs and Electric Collar Training for the Pet Owner.

It may be that you’ll need to go to the remote collar to work this out long term.

It would have been much simpler for everyone to clear this up a couple months ago, and if you don’t make big changes you are going to end up with a dog that wants to kill cats.

No 8 month old dog should have the level of freedom in the home that you have allowed her. By letting her choose where she lays and letting her go after the cats and letting her redirect and try to bite you, YOU have trained her to behave this way (accidentally).

We also have a number of ebooks, which include topics that may help you.

For future questions, you might benefit from learning to use our SEARCH function, which is located in the top left corner of every page of the website. If you type in your key words or question it will find you articles, Q & A’s, free streaming video and links to threads on our discussion forum. Our website has over 16,000 pages and it’s very likely you’ll find the information you are looking for. I hope this helps.

Cindy Rhodes