#resource guarding

Mud hasn't had many issues with the in the past mostly because the other dogs are not as toy obsessed as him and generally haven't had as much interest in the toys as him. He will rg food to some degree as well, but I'm not quite as concerned about that since it's not available except from me. Generally we have most toys put up because he destroys everything and I don't want him eating pieces of fabric/stuffing. He's got a couple free access holee rollers.

I've got time since I don't even know if/when a new dog is coming, but it's something I'd like to be working on before it's a bigger problem. It isn't an all the time thing, as he's been fairly polite with my parents' dog, but it does rear its head on occasion and I can imagine him being a jerk about a puppy having all kinds of new toys.

I really, really like this article on how to manage resource guarding between dogs. My other favorite article is this one by Patricia McConnell. I used both of them a) when I was introducing Bindi to living in a household of other dogs, and b) when I brought Kermit home. It really helped make her not dangerous around the other dogs.

The other thing that helped me, that I found out by accident, was if one dog stole from another dog, I would immediately return the item to the first dog. The thief would get a timeout. That way both dogs learned that stolen items would be returned and the thief got consequences. Apparently they learned this so well that Bindi, who a year earlier had put a dog on its back for walking within ten feet of her toy, wouldn't even growl when dumbass baby Kermit stole a toy out of her mouth, because she knew that she would quickly get the toy returned to her.

Nowadays when I hand out the evening chews, someone (usually Spyro) gets crated because I don't want anyone cussing each other out or scrapping. And if they act stupid, then everyone loses the chews.

This book is commonly recommended to folks with dogs that guard resources. Keeso’s gotten better as I’ve built trust around giving and taking resources, but he still occasionally avoids me if he’s found something VERY high value. He bit me once as a younger adolescent when I tried to take a marrow bone from him that I didn’t want on the couch. (He gave me ample warning and I still pushed him, so I was being an idiot and I fully blame myself for that one.) Anyway, we were walking yesterday and he found a decomposing spine that was pretty disgusting. I went for it casually and he let me have it, even though I didn’t have anything to trade! I was thrilled. Of course, he found another piece of the carcass a few minutes later and this time he ran even further away with me. I didn’t want to risk it again and so I told him I was just leashing him, did so, and then we jogged all the damn way back to the apartment, where I was able to trade him for some curry chicken I had in the fridge. It was a little messy procedurally, but I think we neutralized any trust breakage.

My main concern right now is his guarding issues/resource insecurity around other dogs, mostly through barriers and mostly at work. I have to crate him to feed him and give him enrichment at work (which is easy enough, I don’t mind doing this at all) or he throws his body at dogs in the runs on either side of him. If there’s a crumb of a kibble on the floor outside his run, and another dog shows interest in it, he does the same thing with pretty serious intensity. He’s an incredibly tolerant dog otherwise, so it is quite a thing to see him get so worked up (snarling, hard staring, barking and slavering) over an actual crumb. He guards toys, too, with the same degree of intensity. He’s a major punk about it - he’ll do that thing where he drops his toy in front of another dog (through fencing) and if they take the bait, he starts snarling and fence fighting.

He did some light guarding of a bucket of water from other dogs he was loose with last summer. I had to roll my eyes at that one. It wasn’t a huge deal - he was drinking and as they desperately crowded around, he started snapping back and forth. The other dogs didn’t care much. He was a younger puppy and it was damn hot, so they got their water.

I'm looking for force free resources of any kind, so videos, podcasts, books, blogs, whatever, as long as it's sensible and useful. Please, and thank you!!!

Me: clutching it and sipping as fast as I can

*mutual aggressive staring*

It's Throwback Thursday! Today, here is a picture from five years ago of Badger's mean mug. Badger has been with us for almost eight years now. She was picked up by animal control as a borderline-feral stray living under a condemned trailer, and was heavily pregnant. She dug a burrow at the Bibb County Pound to have her puppies in, and when I saw a post from the pound reaching out for a rescue offer before she whelped, I felt a connection and busted my butt finding her a rescue placement. She had her puppies the day after I pulled her from the pound.

I did not anticipate that Badger would ever become my dog. However, she quickly demonstrated some severe and ultimately dangerous behavioral issues, starting with biting the ACO who removed her from the burrow. What we hoped was a fluke from stress and fear unfortunately turned out to be a temperament issue. She racked up a serious bite history in foster care, and also demonstrated extremely severe resource guarding, as well as dog reactivity. The rescue's last straw was when she mauled one of her own weanling puppies for attempting to eat from the same tray; they told me if I did not want her, they would euthanize.

If I did not have the means to safely work with, contain, and manage this dog, euthanasia would have been the correct choice. At ACS, we recognize that behavior euthanasia, while deeply tragic, is sometimes the only way to give a dog peace and protect others from harm when a dog can not function safely or happily in the human world. Badger is inarguably a dangerous dog, and I go to great lengths to balance keeping her happy with keeping myself and others safe. The good news is, she has not had a single bite incident under my care, she has come a LONG way with resource guarding, and while she still dislikes most dogs, she does like Bolt. She is generally a happy, silly dog, but she will never be a trustworthy one, and having a constant awareness of and respect for that is how we ensure she is safely managed.