Training

By Minou Tpain

Training

As we discussed yesterday, if your dog is resource guarding an item (or items) this most likely means that somehow the dog has developed the idea that he must guard those items because they will most certainly be taken away. Even if you had no intention of taking it away, the dog doesn’t know that. Most of the time this behavior is unintentionally created by the humans.

But fortunately dogs are pretty cool and willing to change! Through training we can help to counter-condition this response.

Now remember in the first post, we talked about management? This would need to come first. This is where you set up your environment so that these items are not available for the taking.

The next step would be different. The idea is to help your dog see your approach (when either of you have that item) as something positive.

You would want to start from a distance and an angle that your dog is comfortable with. Have a sock in your hand. Walk just a step or two towards the dog. Put the sock on the ground. Pick it up. Then have someone else reward your dog. You don’t want them to reward your dog until you’ve picked it up. You want your dog to see that the act of you picking up the sock is what is delivering the treat.

You would repeat this up until the point you notice the dog is actively excited for you to pick up that sock.

Once that happens then you can decrease the distance and repeat. You would keep going through the same process until you are able to be very close to the dog, lay the sock down, pick it up and reward the dog.
You would also want to try this at different angles, different locations and possibly different kinds of socks. You need to imagine all types of scenarios.

Resource guarding can be dangerous to work through, so I would not suggest doing this on your own. But if you want a little bit more information I highly recommend reading the book “Mine” by Jean Donaldson

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