The Katzke Dog Diary

One of Eowyn’s behavior problems relates to her high reactivity relating to resource guarding. Basically, food aggression. Since this problem is manageable, we haven’t been actively training it… I simply put them in their crates before feeding time, and then lock the doors so that they don’t have access to each other and I bring them the food separately.

I should clarify that — it’s not that the problem is manageable, it’s that I have a workaround that lets me manage the likelihood of an incident happening. Until I make a boneheaded mistake…

This past week I started feeding Henry Innova Adult instead of the (more expensive) Innova Adult Large Breed that Eo gets. Eo’s food is in a tupperware thing on wheels… Henry’s, though, is currently in the bag in the laundry room (with the door closed). Haven’t had a chance to get a tub for his yet because I haven’t made it to PetSmart this weekend… it’s a game day and everyone + their mother is in town. Last night, I was doing laundry and let them in from the backyard… they were laying in the kitchen when I opened the door to the laundry room to change loads, and both of them got up when I opened the door. I didn’t even THINK about it until I heard Eo start her “war growl” … when she reacts to Henry she snaps at him with her teeth and makes the world’s loudest “fighting dog” noise. She rarely connects, but Henry (quite justifiably) cries and cowers. With a surge of adrenaline, I picked Eo (all 75+ lbs of her) completely up off the ground by her collar, and she stopped… Henry belly crawled away and tried to crawl under one of the living room chairs. Ugh. Add another one to the score of “times Eo has Eaten Henry’s face…”

To remove the sting from the experience for Henry, I put Eo on a down-stay across the room (Note: I did NOT yell at her or hurt her; corporal punishment would only serve to validate the way she acted towards Henry…) and then attracted him back into the laundry room with handfulls of food.

So. Starting some resource guarding training. It basically involves me putting Eo on a down stay across the room and showing her a resource she wants, and then giving it to Henry. Slowly, I move them closer together until Eo gets agitated. We build it up over weeks and months. At least I have two dogs living in the house all the time so it’s easy to do… food aggression / resource guarding really is hard to do in a one-dog household.