ok im new to this so any help would be appreciated. i dog sitted my sister n- laws dog this week and heard of the problems this dog has been giving her and her new husband. i finally got to see just what they have been telling the rest of the family about.

they recently got a lab from a local shelter and i think the dog is about 5 months old. she seems like a great little cute puppy from a distance but if you spend any time with this dog you will find out that first, when feeding the dog goes crazy over food. i mean really crazy, the food dish is empty in 10 seconds and then it just starts looking for more food. it will think nothing of jumping,climbing on counters and even biting to get food. also anytime she has anything in hear mouth ( toys, bones, etc) and you try to take them from her she will growl and bite, if needed to keep whatever it has in her mouth. also the dog does not want to lay down or submit in front of any humans. she will sit and stay no problem but if you try to roll her over to pet her belly or just make her lay on her side, she will bite.

so this week i tried putting her muzzle on when she got angry and laying her on her side (forcefully) making her submit. i could hold this dog for 15minutes but the minute i showed signs of letting up tension she would growl,squirm and try to bite.

any ideas of how to cure these problems, this is not my dog and the owners just pretend like it really is not a big deal. i think if i could give them some ideas of how to correct this, they would be more then wiliing to put forth the effort needed.

thanks for any ideas in advance.

dan

Hi Dan,

Glad you came here, there is so much information on here that will definitely help you.

Please stop trying to make this dog submit. You need to earn trust and respect from this young dog. I'm sure it's life has been pretty traumatizing already coming from a shelter. Since the dog has high food drive work with the dog from there to teach it how to behave. Ed's has a really good article on becoming a pack leader to a puppy http://www.leerburg.com/puppytraining.htm

Kimberly

Hi Dan - Welcome!

First off, is anyone doing any kind of obedience training with this pup? Even the littlest positive training activities, with consistencey, can make her start to see you (or whom ever owns her) as the leader. This power shift will apply to everything she does, not just her issues surronding food and resource guarding. If the owner isn't doing any training with her at all, she's bound to slide back to her old behavior when she goes home. This would be the first, general reccomendation to begin getting her in line. And there's lots of info here about how to start - Kimberly started your off well .

Regarding the food: Does the pup go crazy over ALL food, including training treats you might give her one at a time, throughout the day? Or is it only when her bowl is in front of her that she gets really wild? Have you tried hand feeding her meals, a little at a time and not using her bowl at all? Is she crate trained? If she were fed in her crate there would be no where for her to "search" for more food once she was finished...

It sounds like this pup is developing some serious dominance problems and it's going to be really important that you correct the food/toy aggression while she's young - it will be MUCH more difficult when her teeth are bigger ! and the longer she is allowed to behave this way, the stronger her attitude as leader over the humans will be.

I agree with Kimberly as well on the forced submission - it isn't necessary and may make matters worse.

There was a thread here just last week about food aggression specifically out of the dog's bowl - it included some good notes about raising a pup and correcting early signs of resource guarding... I'll try to look for it...

~Natalya