Resource guarding is behaviour that occurs when the dog becomes protective over items within their possession, in most cases the item will be food, a toy, or something they have stolen maybe a sock from the clothes airier. Why do our dogs do this? quite obviously if the item is food the behaviour will be a status issue and the dog is protecting his food from theft. This may be a behaviour that was taught to the dog at an early age if the food was taken away at unnatural times, they may have been teased by children, or a person with misguided intensions who believe that the way to master the dog is to be able to take away the food when the dog is half way through. So at this point it’s time to go a little on the dog’s side, so the scenario is – you are in a nice restaurant and the waiter brings out your steak cooked medium rare you are ready to get stuck in and enjoy, after two mouthfuls the waiter returns and takes away your food and stands in front of you sneering, this is to make you respectful of him. Does that work? The waiter gives your food back and you start eating again, five minutes later you see the waiter coming to take your food again, do you hold on to the plate and tell the waiter punches will be thrown if he does it again? Absolutely yes, so there is resource guarding in a nutshell. Our dogs deserve the same consideration as humans in the same scenario, in the wild pack the alpha canine always eats first, when he has had his fill he will move away thus signalling the next in line to take his fill, each dog is entitled to protect his time on the kill by whatever means necessary. The whole effort here is make the point that the dog should be given the time to eat the meal in piece without being glared at. Now we move to the next scenario, the dog is refusing to eat, but guards his food, in this scenario the food must be removed because the dog is making a leadership statement, this should only be done in safety, by using a length of string attached to the feed bowl and snatching away the bowl without the risk of bites.
If the dog is stealing items and guarding them, then this is usually attention seeking in an attempt to gain your interaction, this should be ignored and the item retrieved by distracting the dog or calling them to you with food reward. A little understanding on the human side is all that is needed to resolve this issue.
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