Hi, I need advice on the right way to correct a bad habbit I've recently noticed in our 7 month old cairn terrier bitch.

Normally, she is excellent with her food - allowing us to reach into her bowl and even take treats off her. However, a few weeks ago, we gave her some chicken. While she was eating it, my husband went to stroke her, and she growled and gave him a little nip. We punished her, and it hasn't happened since. Until yesterday.

Yesterday we gave her a bone as a treat, which she took into the corner near the CD player and began to devour with relish. A few minutes later, my husband walked over to change a CD, and she growled at him - a propper, threatening growl. Surprised by this behaviour, I nealt down next to her and, speaking softly put my hand towards her. The growling escalated, acompanied by a horrible snarl and a warning snap. Not wanting to be bitten (she had the upper hand position wise), I threw a towel over her, picked her up, took the bone off her and told her off (in a firm voice, but not shouting). I then put her in the kitchen on her own for half an hour to let her know we were displeased with her.

After half an hour, my husband and I went back into the kitchen, and mood-wise the dog was friendly as ever. We then gave her the bone back in the kitchen. At this point she let us touch her and stroke her with the bone in her mouth. However, as soon as we all went back in the living room, her attitiude changed again. Once more she became growling, snarling and possessive. She landed a bite on my husband's arm (not too hard, didn't draw blood, but probably only because he got mostly out of the way). So again, I caught her, took the bone off her and admonished her before a time out in the kitchen. As soon as the bone was out of her mouth, her attitiude went back to normal, and when she came out of the kitchen later on, she was absolutly fine.

I am very concerned about this, as, as I mentioned, she is normally very good with her food, and lets us put her hands near her bowl and take treats off her. She is also normally very placid - she is full of normal terrirer enthusiasm, but so far she has put up with everything in good temper. I had never heard those noises come out of her before. It was almost like she couldn't help herself.

Obviously, I want to nip this habbit in the bud. My thought was to keep repeating what we did to punish her and hope she gets better. Is this the right thing to do? I know the simple solution would be to not give her bones, but I am worried this behaviour could escalate to other food, toys etc.

Any advice greatly appreciated!

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Vix,
Mum to Kafka (well, I spend most of the day picking up after her, so I must be her mum!)

What you are describing is "Resource/Food guarding" and is totally normal, natural dog behaviour.

What you are doing in response to it is asking for trouble. Sorry. You are reinforcing her conviction that humans near her food is unpleasant and likely to result in her losing her meal.

Please please stop telling her off, throwing towels over her, taking her food away etc. You are risking her becoming even worse and biting you badly, and to be honest, I wouldn't blame her.

I highly recommend you purchase a book called "Mine!" by Jean Donaldson. It explains resource guarding and how to make humans near her bowl/food a GOOD thing.

There is also plenty on the net on the subject. Also, search for articles (on here or on the net) on teaching her a "Give" or "Drop" command, for if she gets hold of something, eg cooked chicken bones, that she shouldn't have.

Until you have learned a bit more about the subject, feed her in a place where you won't have to disturb her and leave the poor dog in peace.

My dogs do not guard low value things ie dinner, plain biscuits. But if I give them a bone or a chew they growl at eachother.
I only give such high value treats like raw bones in their beds. Neither dog has ever been aggressive towards me while eating bones though.

I agree with the book reccomended

Never tell a dog off for guarding food.. all you are doing is making the dog scared to growl. next time, she may just skip the growl and bite! You will just make it worse.
Adding things to her dish will help,or offering higher value foods... say she has a rawhide chew, offer her something smelly like cheese or smoked ham in replacement of the chew and once she lets go of the chew reward her but let her go back to the chew.

x

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Great post, and sound advice colliepoodle...

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www.lochandlake.com Ultra dog friendly holiday apartment near Loch Lomond

Cairns are bad for resource guarding we had it with Buster when he was a puppy and we used to smack him on the nose, not too hard I should emphasise, which made it a million times worse of course but at that time we didn't know any better. I agree with Colliepoodle that book is fantastic

Thank you for the advice, I can see now how punishing her wasn't the right thing to do - I just panicked a bit as it was so unexpected! None of my other dogs have displayed this behaviour.

I think I will try to restrict feeding her "high value" treats to her bed area (the kitchen where she seemed calmer about it). I will also do some more work on "drop", which she normally reponds to. My main worry with this was if she got something she shouldn't (like a chicken bone) and she did the same thing with that.

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Vix,
Mum to Kafka (well, I spend most of the day picking up after her, so I must be her mum!)

I would make her work for everything she gets as well so if she wants a treat make her sit and wait or something it might help and start teaching her drop with something low value and she gets a high value treat for giving you it.
Don't worry about messing up a few times Buster is practically living proof of you can mess up with dogs and you can fix it.