Edie MacKenzie

Edie MacKenzie is a published author, traveler, dog lover, and tortoise enthusiast. Passionate about what she does, her books provide peopel a firm grounding in the dog breed and their unique characteristics with a nice touch of humor.

How To Stop Your Dog’s Possessive Aggression

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Possessive aggression is centered around a dog’s food, toys, treats, or any article that the dog may have stolen from you and this aggression should not be handled primarily with compulsion (negative reinforcement). It should be handled with positive conditioning.

The Scenario: A dog starts to growl when his owner approaches him while chewing his pig’s ear. You can correct this behavior when you are prepared to teach the dog to act in a less defensive manner around his pig’s ear. The technique requires you to first offer the dog his pig’s ear, then walk away. Get out one of your dog’s favorite treats, making it the best it can be, so it is much more appealing than the pig’s ear. Throw or drop the food directly in front of the dog and walk away. If the dog growls, however, as you approach him, walk away and leave no food. If the dog growled, you went too close to him and you should throw the treat from a distance, so as not to elicit any aggression from the dog.

You may decrease the space between you and the dog gradually. This process usually takes several weeks of slowly building the dog’s trust so that he understands you are approaching him to give, and not to take away from him. Generally, these sessions should be very short, but frequent. The treat is fabulous, but each repetition should only give the dog a small amount of food so as to keep him interested in learning how to earn greater rewards. Five or six repetitions per session with about four training sessions daily will generally do.

It is wise not to leave anything for the dog to “own” while you are training him. That includes toys, chews, beds, empty food bowls, and pigs’ ears. Provide the treats when you are practicing your approach conditioning. We will move along to the point where we drop the treats between his legs or have him directly take the food from your hand. We will proceed to the point where you can take his pig’s ear, give him a treat, and then return his pig’s ear to him to chew.

In this way you can functionally teach your dog to look forward to your approach when he has an object, and if necessary allow you to take the object with no anxiety or aggression from him. This will work only if you follow the procedure and do it slowly. After you have achieved success, continue this process intermittently forever. Also, note that a dog that knows how to drop something out of his mouth on command tends toward less possessive aggression.

It is critical that all members of your family participate in this program in order for the dog to generalize his correct behavior. Always be aware that this possessive aggression may arise again if an unforeseen incident provokes defensive actions on the part of your dog. Your dog’s aggression is an action that occurs in hopes that the target of his aggression will exhibit avoidance behaviors and walk or run away, therefore allowing him to fulfill his defensive drive.

4 Important Tips When Feeding Your Dog

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Rule 1: A dog should be fed by the same person at every feeding. This rule is not nearly as important where a couple of house pets are being fed by several members of the same family, as it is where large numbers of dogs are being fed by numerous different kennel personnel.

It is particularly applicable where dogs are in strange environments such as boarding kennels, veterinary hospitals, or show arenas. Dogs that have become accustomed to one feeder may exhibit all sorts of erratic eating behavior if that person is changed.

Rule 2: Every dog should have its own food and water container. This precaution is not only sound behavioral psychology, it also is just plain good hygiene. It is especially wise to assign food bowls on an individual basis when your feeding containers are noticeably different from one another.

Besides improved feeding technique, certain practical benefits are to be gained from following this rule.

In racing stables, for example, where maintenance of body weight is so important, feeding instructions can be written on the bottom or the side of each dog’s feeding container, right next to its name or number.

Rule 3: A dog should be fed in the same place every time it is fed. Whether it be the corner of the kitchen, beside the back-door steps, at the rear of a kennel run, or along the left-side wall of a cage, the site where the food container is placed should remain the same every day.

In fact, everything that’s done with the food container should be identical at each feeding. lf you use a push cart or wagon to carry the tub of food to the dogs, always use the same cart and tub. lf you pre-fill food bowls in the diet kitchen and carry them on the cart, don’t decide one day to carry the tub of food on the cart and fill each bowl as you reach the dog.

It may have become boring to you, but to your dog it has become the way of life. A change only serves to disrupt his way of life and to create cause for insecurity.

Rule 4: No dog should ever have its food changed without a good reason. Contrary to popular opinion, dogs do not need a change in food from time to time to keep them from growing tired of the same food all the time.

Many dogs have lived normal, healthy lives by eating the same food throughout their entire lifetimes. In many instances where a dog owner thinks a dog has gotten sick and tired of a food, the dog has just gotten sick from the food. Not so sick, perhaps, that it really showed, but sick enough to stop eating.

When a dog food is deficient, it is not uncommon for a dog eating that food to lose its appetite. Of course, nutritional deficiencies are not the only thing that will cause a dog to lose its appetite.

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