A Breakdown in the Human‑ Dog Relationship

Author: Denise Partlow

Instagram: @modernk9 Carolinas

      Resource guarding is a serious issue but there is so much more to this behavior than meets the eye. If a dog guards their owner, it’s an indicator that there is a breakdown in the human-dog relationship.

    Many will tell you it happened out of the blue but that is rarely the case. More than likely, something was happening along the way that was breaking the relationship down, we just didn’t pick up on it.

It usually boils down to a lack of leadership and giving our dog way too much freedom within our home, so much so that the dog thinks he runs it and we are just housemates living there.

It is important to see that there’s a breakdown in the relationship; where the trust or respect has been damaged. Most of the time the owners don’t intend for this to happen, they just aren’t clear on how to communicate their leadership capabilities to their dog.

So how do we resolve this?
It’s time to take back that leadership role and restrict boundaries. No more freedom for your dog.
No more going on furniture and doing whatever your dog wants all day long.

You’re in charge of the toys and when they come out and when they go away.

You tell your dog where to lay down, when to lay down and how long to lay down.

You are the one that decides when your dog goes outside, and comes inside.

Your dog waits at doorways with you instead of busting out in front of you.

When it’s time to eat or play, your dog now waits patiently

Many dogs will happily give that leadership role back, they don’t really want it and you will be lifting a major weight off their shoulders. When your dog has given you that leadership role back, then you can start easing up, introducing some of those freedoms back into his routine.

Some cases are mild and restricting boundaries will be all you’ll need. Others are way more serious that may require specific training steps to counter-condition your dog’s response-this is usually when a dog is guarding a specific item-I will discuss this approach in the next post.