262. Food aggression & toilet training 9 month old Beagle Cross Lab

Toilet Training Your First Puppy in Singapore

9-month old Cross bites 4-year-old child for touching his chew toy.


QUESTION

I just got a new dog and we found out he is protective/aggressive when he has a bone to chew on. I haven't seen him act like this with his food, but haven't really tested him either. He was just laying on the floor chewing on a rawhide bone and when my son tried to pet him he growled and snapped at him. How do I get him to not be like that? Thanks.

ANSWER

How old is your son?

My son is 4 1/2 yrs old.

How old is the dog? Can you give me some background on the dog?

He is 9 mths old. He had lived inside with a few smaller dogs for awhile. But has been tied outside for alittle while when I got him. I now have him inside.

I would first suggest obedience training in a public class so that the dog learns who the boss is. I'm hoping it's you.

No more tasty chew toys for awhile. What is he like when he eats his food? Can you put your hand in his food bowl while he is eating? No, don't put your real hand there! Put the handle end of a broom into his food while he eats............what happens? Details please.

I haven't really seen him eat much since I brought him home. When he does decide to eat I will use a broom handle and check what he does.

Remember, you bought that toy for him, you buy that food for him. Those things are not his, they belong to you. When you want to take it away from him, it is yours for the taking.

This is not going to be a quick fix, we have to stay in touch, ok?





I will definitely stay in touch. I am hoping this dog does not end up being more than I can handle right now. I had open heart surgery about 3 weeks ago and am not allowed to life much weight or drive yet. (i drove to get him, but that's cause he was close). The previous owners did say if for any reason it doesn't work out I can take him back. But I am hoping I can get this worked out. I am also having probs with the housebreaking. I'm not sure how long he has been outside, but one of the first things he did when I brought him home was poop and pee in the living room. Now, a few hrs later he decided to pee in the other room. I am also working on him with staying off the couches. He obviously has not had much, if any, training. I cannot afford to go to a formal dog training class right now, but can work with him myself. thanks.



Your son is too young to help himself and may not understand not to touch the dog when the dog has a toy. When you can't supervize their play, you need to put the dog in a crate, or in another room, or behind a baby gate.

In a house full of dogs at his previous home he has had to "fight" for anything that could belong to him. Because the other owners did nothing to intervene they did a really good job in setting him up to guard his resources, that has now become a dangerous habit. Grrrrrrr! to the previous owners.

Thanks. My son is actually very good with animals, but of course is a 4 yr old. I have explained to him that we can't pet the dog when he has a chew toy. He seems to understand that very well, but of course I will always supervise their time together. Better safe then sorry. Since I have had my heart surgery I am supposed to do a lot of walking so he will help give me a reason to get off my butt and do my walking. We live in the country with lots of open fields and back roads, so their are plenty of places for me to walk him. He's a real sweetie and I want things to work out so we can keep him. I will hand feed him and work on training him too. I know a lot of the basics of training the normal stuff like sit, heal, lay, etc. So I will start with that. I also need to get him a halti. He tends to pull a good bit on the leash. Thanks.





Just as a side note. My own Border Collie, Stoan, resource guards. Not from humans but from other dogs. I can take anything away from him any time I want to.

He doesn't like it when other dogs approach to investigate his stuff at our club building. These are things that belong to he and I that I store at our building when we have classes. He doesn't like certain dogs approaching him when he's in his kennel at the club building. He doesn't like it when other dogs approach us when I'm wearing my bait pouch. A human can approach our stuff, and dig around in it, but not that person's dog.

Stoan's behavior towards other dogs is normal, and he's just talking doggy to them, but I'm working hard to tone down this behavior as well.

One more command for your dog. Teach him to readily give up his toys or chew bones, by asking him to accept a food treat in exchange, when you want to take the toy away from him. BUT, if you do this, you have to win. If he growls, or snaps, and you walk away, he's won. You have to find some means of distraction so you can get that toy. My thought is that, if an adult can take away the toy without the rude response then it only means that the dog sees your son as a puppy, the lowest on the totem poll in the pack. Has this dog grown up around children? See, if the dog succeeded in scaring a child away from his toy at any time, then the dog had just won the first round. He thinks humans scare easy, especially the small humans.

His breeding is Lab, a playful, very strong, family-oriented breed, and Beagle, a head-strong clown that is obscessed with food. With his nose to the ground the Beagle is always looking for something. Hunting down his "prey" and gobbling it up.

I hope you're up to the energy level that this cross breed will demand

If you want to, you can hand-feed him his meals. This will teach him that the food belongs to you. Teach him to sit before he gets a meal. Adopt the, "no free lunch" training method. Anytime he wants something, toy, food, walk, go outside, he has to do something on your command to have it. Simplest commands would be sit, or down.

I would be very careful. As has been said this dog could be very dangerous to you and your child.
This dog has to get over the food aggression...

I gave him a plastic chew toy today. He wasn't too happy about my trying to get it from him, but he didn't growl at me. I told him give and took it out of his mouth. He let me take it from him pretty easily. I haven't had my son go near him when he has this toy yet

I finally got him to eat some of his dog food. He will eat it out of my hand just fine, but for some reason doesn't want to eat it out of the bowl. Why would he be acting like this? He is ending up being a very interesting dog, lol.