Food aggression... Long post.

I thought I had kurbed this in Kismet, but last night it reared it's ugly head again and now I feel terrible.

When kismet was a tiny pup she was very food aggressive, would go mad if you tried to put your hand in her bowl... I worked on it with her and now you can say "wait" and she will stop and move away from her bowl. She is still clearly desperately focused on the food bowl though and will take your hand off if you offer her a distraction treat then go back to staring at the bowl waiting for you to give her the "ok eat' command. She is a very fast eater then and will wolf the rest of her food... Normally that's it. I feed her last, in her crate but with the door open and in another room to the other two dogs.

Last night unusually she came in and Selkie was still eating her dinner. Kismet gets fed last. Kismet saw that Selkie was still eating and froze. Selkie looked up at her and Kismet just launched at her! Really nasty attack. I had to pull her off by her scruff and pin her to get her to stop and calm down, she was in her full on food frenzy and nothing I could say was getting through... Selkie was traumatised by the attack and ran upstairs...

By about 10 mins later, Kismet was back to her normal bubbly happy friendly self... It took me about another 2 hours to settle Selkie down enough to come into the same room as her and another hour or so after that to get her to sit and take a treat next to her.

This crazy food frenzy aggression is only around really high value 'free' food. A dropped item or her dinner. Food that is on the floor and not in my direct control.

What do I do?

In one to one training with her, I have taught her she cannot have food dropped on the floor. All the dogs know this and the other two likewise will not go for food that is dropped unless I pick it up and give it to them.

But as soon as all the dogs are together and something is dropped Kismet will dive for it, or attack one of the others. She is a different dog when food and the other dogs are around and I am ashamed to say it, she scares me. I dn't want to push the training with the other dogs because I don't want one of them to get hurt.

Will she calm down when he is spayed? She hasn't had her first season yet and to be honest right now if I thought there was a chance it would calm her, I'll book her in tomorrow!

Can I just say one thing that I have read about neutering females, it doesn't work if you are neutering for agression problems apparently. All it does is make the female produce more testosterone, which actually makes things worse.
I think you need to go back to basics with her and feed her on her own for a bit and then gradually bring her back in with the others, maybe just leaving the door open initially, or giving the others food from your hand and feeding her last. She may well be due her first season as well because she sounds like she may be hormonal. Mine do loads of things that are completely over the top and out of character around the time they are in season. If she has raging PMT she will be doing things out of the norm.

I had wondered if that might be it, she killed tigger (her favourite puppy toy) last night too. She normally carries him around and cuddles him. But this morning her bed is filled with poor tigger innards!

breakfast this morning went without a hitch. I fed kismet in the garden by hand, Selkie and Pharaoh had theirs in the house.... All were finished before Kismet came back in. Tonight I will feed her in her crate as usual, but back to slowly and by hand I suppose... Resigning self to nipped fingers and slimey dog food ... ew

But I obviously ideally want to get her to a point where they can be fed together at least in the same room without WW3 breaking out! We stay at my Mum's house over Christmas and there is no where to separate them there easily. The kitchen is the only dog food friendly room.

Humm...have you tried John rogersons Food bowl technique....that can help a lot...I can pm you the instructions if you would like.

I would personlly wait until she has had her first seaon and the hormones have had a chance to settle.

well if she has killed Tigger she may well be hormonal. Mine always, without fail, attack the wood pile outside, and there is loads of logs and all sorts scattered about for a few weeks before they are due, didn't even make the connection to be honest, it was my breeder who pointed it out, when I was cursing them one morning I had a bit more of a clue this time though, Cariad dug a massive hole on the river bank and put the balls and squeaky toys in it and wouldn't let Lona near it
So she may well be 'safe' by Christmas anyway, if it is PMT. Poor Tigger

er maybe? Is that when you put a ball in the bowl? She took it out and ate round it... or the bowl with the raised bit in the middle? She chipped a tooth on it quite painfully and I admit I put it back in the cupboard... Please PM me the technique instructions though... Can't hurt to look

sorry to hear of this problem.

Can I just ask if why you did this? reason I'm asking is to try to find out if you were told it is correct to remove food from the dog or something of that nature...

Do you mean you do this whilst she is eating? or before the food is in the bowl?

Which of your dogs is she, and how old is she? I'm guessing under a year...

She is 10 months old. The Husky malamute cross.

I needed to be able to take things away from her in case she had something bad for her. I have always been told it is a good idea to get a puppy used to letting you take things from her. Also she was a very hyped and snappy puppy around food and would be threatening to you or the other dogs. So I thought it best to kurb the behaviour while she was still small enough she couldn't do serious damage.

She will both wait before her meal and has always had to and is able to stop and move away from her food mid meal if you need to take the bowl for any reason (I forgot to put her medicine in it once and once she pulled her blanket into it and nearly ate that too)!

I want to hear Wys's reply on this, but until then I would handfeed - no food bowl at all.

Mary

ETA: Have tou read Jean Donaldson's 'Mine!'

It is a real insight into possession and has some very helpful advice. I would order it today....I have a resource guarder but it is completely managable and the dogs eat together...bones are more problematic and I hold one end so possession is not an issue.

This sounds alot like Dori. I use to put my hand in her bowl and just move her food around she was fine with it, well I can still do it now but if Katie is still eating when Dori has finished, Dori will go and move Katie out, we have to stand and stop her getting to katie.
Dori will fight with katie just like you discribed in your first post to.
She did stop all of this about 6 months ago and we thought we had cured it but it started again about a month ago.
Also when we are eating she will stop Katie getting near us and this can course a fight to.
Just feel so bad for Katie,
we had her spayed after her first season.