I have a 6 month old alaskan malamute puppy who guards his food. He has been doing this since he is 11 weeks old. He will growl if you touch him while he is eating and he will bite if you touch his bowl. I have tried adding food to his dish but that does not work. I have given him strong corrections but that doesn't work. He does not guard his water or toys. He also guards anything food related such as a pigs ear, rawhide etc.
I can feed him by hand with no problem. I can also touch his snout while he is eating if I am handing him the food or treats.
He only does this as soon as the bowl hits the ground. I have even tried holding the bowl and hand feeding him his entire meal and he is fine but as soon as I start putting the bowl on the ground he guards the food. Any suggestions thank you jamie

Jean Donaldson has a book called A Guide to Resourse Guarding that may be helpful. In the mean time (or forever) you could feed the dog dinner/treats in a crate.

Interested to see what others might say.

Jennifer

When you have tried the hand feeding (meals, not treats or recreational bones/chews), how many days in a row did you do this before you switched back to the bowl on the floor?

~Natalya

Jamie: this is one behaviour that I would've corrected as soon as possible. It's so much easier on a 7-week-old puppy than it is on an adolescent or adult dog

Since your dog is still a puppy, I would still try to correct him for this. Don't mess with his food once you put it down, but don't tolerate any aggression from him either.
I don't believe in correcting aggression or dominance issues with bribes and treats... instead of trying to distract him by adding treats into his bowl, I would correct him instead.

You said that correcting him didn't work. Well, it does work if you correct hard enough (malamutes can usually take A LOT).

It's really too bad you didn't fix this when he was a baby though, it would've been 100 times easier ... all it took for my male shepherd (at 7 weeks) was for me to grab his scruff and give a quick jerk on it with a firm NO!
I never took his food away or touched it, but I made sure he got used to me petting him while he ate. I corrected each time he growled but then let him get right back to eating and would praise him again.
It only took two sessions of this to make his food guarding disappear - he's 13 months now and I can stick my hand into his mouth while he's eating and he could care less


Get a prong collar, make sure it's fitted very snug high on his neck and put a leash (or a tab leash) on him before you feed him. When he growls at you, give a HARD JERK on the leash as you say NO!! Don't give in here... if he bites you or continues growling, your correction was too weak.

Make the correction as swift as you can and let him get back to eating right away - don't nag him about it.

Wait a few seconds and try petting him again - if he growls again, give him a much harder correction (again, as you say NO).
He should give a little yelp and immediately knock off with the aggression.

I hope you can fix this now - every time you back off when he growls and bites you, you're just showing him that he's dominant over you.

Frankly, if this were an adult dog with serious guarding issues I don't think it would be a fight worth fighting. If this dog were 2 or 3 years old, I would tell you to just feed him in his crate because it's too late to try and fix it at that age.

At 6 months you should be able to get this under control... just stop giving in to him. Good luck, and be careful not to get bitten


PS: while I don't believe in jerking a dog around to train it, I DO believe that you must absolutely give a VERY hard and memorable correction for ANY sign of handler aggression. This is beyond unacceptable behaviour and you shouldn't be afraid of hurting his feelings... at 6 months he's not a real threat to you so you can still win. You'll be happy you got this fixed before he reaches maturity - at that point it will most likely be a fight that you can no longer win.
Good luck.

I have the same problem And I have a million excuses for it, but none of them are really that good

My 9 month old GSD started showing signs of food aggression around 5 months when my cleaning lady was near him while he ate. He was fine with me. So I started correction him....then he became aggressive with my husband so he CORRECTED him....now he's aggressive towards me as well...

The more we corrected the worse it got. He is now fed in his crate.

I then switched to trying to build his trust. I read here (sorry, can't remember who said it) that he needs to think of us as PEZ dispensers and that us coming near him is a good thing. We are working on it.

It's very hard to work on hand feeding when you raw feed! I cannot hold onto a rack of venison ribs while he eats them. If I feed him from a bowl he seems pretty good. It's high value food that he is most protective of.

Then, after thinking about the issue for a while I though that even if I can feed him and take his food away what good will that do as I have two other GSDs living at home that he will not be so willing to share with. I think? that most people with this many adult dogs feed separately? I'm planning of building dog runs after we move next week and the dogs will be fed there. I will continue to work on the food aggression - but I will do it slowly without correction.

I did it for a week at three meals a day

Lee, it really sucks that your pup is being such a butt-head!

Actually, my dogs would never share food with eachother (nor would I ask them to). They can eat peacefully while lying side by side but will growl and even snap if the other dog tries to grab whatever they're eating.

They quickly learned to respect eachother's space when eating and it's never been an issue. Neither of them is aggressive though so I've never had to worry about fights. (Besides, they know that I would never tolerate that!)
If I had the slightest doubt, then yes, I would feed them separately

Yes, my older two (Amer. Lines) are fine eating together - and they will let out the odd growl or bark but they would never fight over food - they don't really care about it that much! Last week I gave them each half a rabbit and they looked at it for almost 45 minutes before eating. I could hear my female give out a bark about every 10 minutes like she was saying "Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna eat it later!" - but my male was also just sniffing his.

The new dog is different (German Working Lines). He has already gotten into it with my bitch over food (totally MY fault!).

I won't risk a fight or me getting bit - and the worst part is having to argue with my husband who wants to beat the crap out of him for his food aggression. I let him give him a HUGE correction months ago - it made no impression.

BTW - his litter mate is also food aggressive (but they were smart enough to notice before I did!). Another one of my excuses (?) was that neither of my other dogs were ever aggressive so I wasn't thinking about it. They are dog/dog aggressive so that was my main concern and worry. I hand fed him for months and really think the issue was only intensified by the corrections.

Thanks for your response. I have to tell you he is tough and I have been attempting to get this under control since he first started the behavior at around 11 weeks. I gave him the sctuff shake which did not stop his behavior. He would yell but still do it again the next time. I graduated to lifting him up by the choke collar when he did this with a strong verbal correction. He still would do it the next time. When he was given a pigs ear or a similar item he would try to avoid the confrontation by running away with it as soon as you got near him. (I never gave him any reason to belive I would take his food from him ) I only tried adding treats after I read it online (it does not work at all with him)
I have recently started doing something similar to what you suggest on the advice of a private trainer. I consulted a trainer that has @ 25 years experience with shepards, rotties and dobermans. She felt his problem was partially dominance issues and partially due to him starving. I was feeding him 3/4 of a cup of food 3x a day on the advice of the breeder. I told the breeder he would eat the food in 2 seconds and was acting like he was starving all the time. She insisted I not give him any more food. The trainer felt he was not getting enough food and this contributed to the problem but of course was not the sole cause. For the last month she has me giving him 2 cups of food 3x a day. She also has me keep a choke collar and leash on him while he eats. She has me keep my hand on his shoulders during the entire time he is eating and when he growls give him a strong correction with the choke as well as a strong verbal no until he stops the growling. I have to say since he is being fed more he eats much slower and is no longer choking his food down. He is growling alot less but still growls for the intial few seconds you touch him. I am not afraid of getting bit because he never lifts his head out of the bowl no matter how strong the correction. Today coincidently on my own I did use a prong collar. He still did not come back at me when I made the correction. He continues to eat. He does stop the growling after one or two strong corrections. What do you think? Do you think I am getting good advice from this trainer? Everyone has a different opinion but it appears the correction approach is working the best. Do I need to make the correction stronger or is this something that needs to get better over time? I appreciate your help. I really want to try to stop this behavior
thank you

Lee: Wow...he sounds pretty intense.

I see why you've decided to just feed him in his crate if it's just not worth the fight.

Is he very dominant and hard to control otherwise? I suppose if it's just over food then it's not that big a deal to ignore.

I'm glad that my new working-line pup has 0 food aggression - she bites a LOT in play but is the sweetest thing. She's really too cute for me to correct so I'm glad she's such a little angel

Good luck with your tough guy, Lee!!

(Too funny about the rabbit!! Both of mine reacted the same way the first time - although once they figured it out they started to INHALE their rabbit meals )