I have an 8 week old cane corso male pup that I
hand feed chicken and beef ribs right now, and he
has never shown any aggression towards me or anyone
else AT ALL. I move the food around to get him more
interested in it, helping get a better grip on the the
chicken bones, etc. Basically, I am all over the food,
encouraging and helping him eat it. I NEVER take the
food away unless he is done with it. I have been doing
this since I got him, 3 times a day, for 4 days.
This morning, I woke up around 9 and took him out. He
peed, I praised, then we moved onto feeding, which i
do in the crate and in the kitchen. I know this is a
mistake and will now ONLY feed him in the crate. After
he had his water, I grabbed som beef ribs and chicken
leg quarters and started feeding him on a towel in the
kitchen. I did this because it is easier for me to
help him with his food and get him more interested in
it by moving it around than when he is in the crate. I
helped him tear up the chicken and some short ribs. He
had his fill, taking the meat of two short ribs and
almost finishing the chicken. I put a short rib bone
in his mouth(it was pretty big, not a choke hazard.)
He decided to take the short rib bone to his crate, or
what I thought was his crate.
He made a b line for the ground next to his crate. He
had the bone in his mouth, and my girlfriend moved his
butt into the crate. Now he is half in, half out of
the crate. My girlfriend starts to push him into the
crate. This is my mistake for allowing my g.f. to kind
of force him into the crate. He is working on the
bone, my g.f. is pushing him from behind to get into
the crate. He emits a low growl. He has only growled
when we are playing and he is in prey drive. This was
a warning, "get your hands off me bitch" growl. I
immediatley grab him, pull him out, lift him by the
neck to me eye level and scream NO!. As soon as I
reached into the crate to do this, he totally lost it.
He snapped, hissed, growled, everything. I have had
rottweilers before, with dominant tendencies and fully
matured at 120 pounds they have never done this to me,
ever, in any situation. I mean, he was pissed. I put
him back in the crate facing me the next second, take
the food out of his mouth WITH NO ISSUE and praise and
give him a treat. M g.f. then does this several times,
and he is now sleeping in the crate.
He has never shown any aggression like this before. I
have never seen aggression like this in a puppy
before. He has lots of prey drive, and I would like to
do some bite work with this prey drive so we play tug
of war, but I never allow him to mouth anything except
toys, that means nothing attached or on a human body,
clothes, fingers, shoes, anything. When he does this,
he gets a scruff shake and a firm growl or no. He has
shown a strong tolerance for this type of correction,
and sometimes I have to do it 4 or 5 times in a row,
even though he yelps every time, before he gets it.
The toys he plays with are mine, most of the time he
gets tuckered out, lays down, and I take the toys and
put them away. When he is a playful mood and begins to
do puppy stuff, the toys come out of the box and we
play. He is not possesive of toys at all. He is an
exlemprary puppy outside of this incident. He is
nearly house broken, knows sit and come very well,
even walks good on the leash around the house and in
our garden (we do not walk him on the street b/c he
has not had all his shots) He does not like his crate
at all though, and sometimes, when he is in there, his
breathing becomes very heavy and forced, not panting,
more like hyperventelating. He does not see the crate
as his "den", but more of a place that prevents him
from being closer to and interacting with us. He much
prefers to lay and sleep underneath furniture. He was
shipped to us in the crate, from Atlanta to New York,
so maybe the crate is still asociated with a traumatic
experience for him. Whenver he is calm and in a down
in the crate he gets a treat.
Twice people have approached our gate in the dark and
he has shown no hesitation to perk his ears forward,
charge and bark. Once it was my dad, and he then
greeted him warmly once he realized. Once it was me,
and the same happened. I hope this was not his nerves.
Did not seem like it.
I feel this was not food aggression, but something
else. Was it that he was approached from behind? Did
he feel cornered in the crate? I feel we forced this
situation on him, and it is obviously our mistake, but
I need to know at what exact points we screwed up. I
am by no means at all an expert, but I hope someone out there can help us out with our problem. I sent this messsage out to Mr. Frawley and began the basic GW exactly as he described it, but am still curious about what anyone else thinks about this specific situation.
Thanks!

carlo

A puppy at that age displaying that level of aggression to *anyone* is a very bad sign for the future.

I hope you have access to a good trainer who has experience with aggression issues, as you're just seeing the start of what your dog will be showing you in the future.

If you haven't already, I'd strongly suggest you look into getting the Leerburg video about "Raising a Working Puppy", the information in it might be helpful to you.

I don't know much, but I do know that a pup showing that kind of aggression at that age is really bad. For any reason.
That said, I think you (crazy as it is to be writing this about a pup) might be dealing with dominance agression to your girl friend. I think that the pup thought it was her picking it up.
Here is the advice that is most important to you, and that I can give with confidence.........Listen to what ED and WILL say!!!!!!
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