Growling/Bitting when fed
My OES is 3 months old now and he had been a very good and well mannered dog until 3 days ago. Whenever we are going to feed him, we ask him to sit and then we give him food, we touch him while he is eating and we could take away his food even when he was still eating (he had been eating dry food only). The problem began 3 days ago when we gave him milk and he got diahrrea.... he stop eating at all and we took him with the vet yesterday. She gave him some cat food to test his appetite... when she tried to approached he growled at him and tried to bite her. When the vet gave him some more he didn´t want to eat. She said that maybe he wasn´t eating because he didn´t want the dry food, that we should combine canned+dry food for him to like it. We did it in the morning and he repeated the behavior. My husband tried to touch him after he ate and the dog bit him very hard!!!..... Any suggestions to stop that? I don´t want to be afraid of my own dog!!! |
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| Gosh, I hope someone has replied to you before now.
Barring a medical problem (tooth, gums or ?) this is certainly a strange situation. Sounds like your pooch is now practicing "resource guarding" and what on earth triggered that? Also sounds like you are familiar with the practice of sitting the bowl down and making the dog sit/wait until you tell him he can eat, then intentionally taking his food away and making him do something (sit/stay) to earn it. I would do a couple of things -- make him sit and stay after you have put his dish down. Attempt to take it away. If he growls, take the whole bowl away and leave the room. After a short period of time, come back, and make him sit, and give him one kibble. Essentially, give him his food one piece at a time, making him earn each piece. -- think about getting a Gentle Leader head collar and leave it on him even in the house. It means you dont have to grab his collar to direct him, and getting control of his head means you have control of him. The Gentle Leader folks actually have an attachment for in-house training, and their literature explains how to use it. -- make sure he isn't also subtly challenging you in other ways like eye contact, going through doors first, etc. The resource guarding may just be one sign that he is challenging you and you may not have noticed the other signs. -- make sure he knows that the "big snip" is coming (just kidding) -- make sure he is eating food with the appropriate protein level; check with your vet, I forget when puppies need to be changed over to adult food. I do know that high protein dog food (over 20% ish) is not good for dogs with aggression issues -- make sure, again, with your vet that there isn't something medical going on -- look for articles on the web on "resource guarding" and/or think about hiring a good trainer for a session If you ever have trouble getting him to eat, you could try my secret method -- STINKY CHEEZE. I put a pinch of parmesan on the kibble, or better yet, romano, the stinkier the better. Good luck, I'd love to hear if you find out |
| I WOULD PUT HIM BACK ON DRY FOOD ONLY DONT WORRIE IF HE DOSE NOT EAT IT HE"LL SOON EAT WHEN HES HUNGRY!MY OLD ENGLISH SHEEP DOG STARTED BITING WHEN I MIXED DOG FOOD IN WITH DRY BISCUTS I DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS BUT MY SISTER INLAW USED TO GIVE HER CAT DRY FOOD UNTILL SHE CHANGED IT OVER TO TIN FOOD BIG CHANGE IN THE CAT HE GOT AGRESSIVE. |
| run to: http://www.sonic.net/~cdlcruz/GPCC/library/htm. Yes it's a Great Pyrenees site, but there are oooodles of good info on settin who is Boss in your family. Sheepies will do this unless they learn you are the Boss. |
| I might mention you need to hand type that URL, for some reason it doesn't come up when you click the link. |
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