Advice re food (treat) agression

What would you do to correct this new behaviour?

Dog has never shown any signs of food aggression as a puppy and doesnt guard the bowl at home. Dog is happy to be given a treat from another dog walker whilst in his group of friends he walks with, however if dog's owner is the one dishing out the treats then Dog will not allow any of his friends to take a treat and snaps if they try, despite Dog already having had his treat first.

I have advised to avoid the situation for now ie: the owner not be the one handing out the treats to the group, but obviously it needs dealing with as they want to get more dogs in the future and are now worried about how Dog will react.....

thanks in advance

I never allow someone else to treat my dogs. I don`t want my dogs thinking it`s OK to take food from strangers.
If someone started handing out food in a group I was with I`d turn away and take my dogs with me.
Personally I think it`s a really silly thing to do and it is very likely to provoke a fight.

Having multiple dogs from the same household and treating is completely different. You train your dogs to accept that they wait while their mate is treated / trained.

Avoid the situation, anyone doing this is bonkers and fails to understand how, what they regard as a "kind gesture" can fuel incidents.

For most dogs, food and treats arouses them and as dogs do not do sharing, they will naturally want to fight over them.

Don't allow it.

It is not the dogs that need to be "cured" but the owner(s) that need to be educated!

thanks that makes total sense and im glad i advised to avoid the situation

You advised good

Wys
x

I have a fear-reactive dog who is much better now re behaviour and she gets rewarded with a treat for being calm around other dogs, ignoring the other dogs, or having a sniff of their bottom if she knows them.

When she gets a treat, if I know the other owner I will sometimes ask them if their dog would like one and then I would hand it to the other owner to give to their dogs. I don't think people should reward other people's dogs with food as they then could go up to other dog owners and be a nuisance scrounging for grub!

I did find it annoying when another dog owner kept giving Parker treats when I had asked him not to. It took a few times of me asking him not to feed him before he stopped but his dog is quite fat and he seems to want to feed eveyone else's up too! Bless him!

PS-When I did agility with Parker the trainer said to put a bowl at the end of the course with treats in for the dog to get when course completed. Parker let another dog rush in and eat his treats and just backed away from the bowl wuffing at me to sort it out! Trainer was amazed and said her dog would have had the other one's face off! Parker is such a wuss-I love him!

It's management on behalf of the owners... at training class I found Merlin guarded "his" treats (i.e. the ones I had in my pocket/bag) from other dogs.

I just made sure I sat further away from the other dogs at class, never handed them out or got them out while we weren't actually on the floor doing work, and stopped going to the class which was so overcrowded there was not enough space to do that.