Wow, Mattie, that sounds rough. Kudos to you for reacting with a peaceful solution!

It wasn't a punishment; more an 'Oi, you're getting a little close to the line here' noise. Taji came to us with a number of problematic behaviours, and I use my voice to let him know when his behaviour is less than acceptable. I am almost certain that he has been mistreated in the past, probably choked or rolled or both, as he does not like to be handled by his collar and won't tolerate it at all from strangers. Even if I weren't firmly opposed to pain as a training device, the very idea of physically controlling him is laughable-- he may be a tiny Akita, but he is extremely strong. He responds very well to voice, whether it's me telling him he's out of line or praising him for being delightful.

It's only the food guarding that I don't tolerate. It's completely unnecessary. I know some advocate using food as a kind of controlling thing: you have all the food, always eat first, put it down and take it away after 20 minutes if they haven't eaten it etc. etc. etc. but food is not a power struggle in our home. We're lucky enough to be able to free-feed, and even if there wasn't food in the bowls the bag is right there on the floor. I have to worry about the eldest too: he is a natural bottom-of-the-pack and if anyone were guarding the food, he would never eat any.

Taji does warn people off if they're doing something he doesn't like, and I never, ever discourage this behaviour. He's very friendly, but he does not like it if someone he doesn't know well puts their hand over his head (possibly the collar thing) and if someone does this, he will usually issue a short, deep WORF and smack their hand away with his nose. Most strangers will ask if it's okay to pet him (he's one of Those Dogs, you know, the ones who are always tearing children to shreds in their grandmother's homes ) and I explain that he doesn't like that but loves being scritched under the chin. The number of people who then promptly reach over his head is a rather sad indicator of listening skills in the average person. I would never, ever tell him off for WORFing them, even if they react as if they'd been bitten. That's how they don't get bitten.

It's not just things like that: it can also be an indicator that something is wrong. My eldest had a fatty lump in the middle of his chest-- not cosmetically appealing, but not actually harmful-- and I would never have known that it was causing him discomfort if he hadn't growled at me if I went to cuddle him particular ways. Lump removed. Cuddles secured.

I do not get people beating a dog up for warning. It is every level of wrong. You're so right when you say we need to listen.

Our voices are a very powerful tool and very underrated, we can communicate so much to our dogs by our voices.

When people go to get hold of a dog's collar they always go for the back of the neck, it is the easiest place to get hold of the collar. To a dog the back of the neck is a very sensitive area, it is were many animals go to kill their prey, dogs that are aggressive will also go for the back of the neck if they can. Dogs need to trust us to let us get hold of their collars there or in many cases they have been punished into allowing it.

We do control food and don't need to prove it by eating first etc. I always feed my dogs before myself because it is easier to do and I can relax after eating. I never have to take their food away after 20 minutes, there is never any to take away

Personally I don't like free feeding although I do know owners who prefer it. I like to know how much my dog has eaten and I can't if I free feed. When I took Cyril in he was just a big head with a skeleton covered in skin behind, he has doubled his weight and is still lean. If I free feed him it could have killed him because he ate too much too quickly, I had to teach his digestive system how to work.

Bonnie and Tilly have been fed in the same room for a few years now, recently I have been feeding Dolly there as well, those that finish first wait until the last one finishes and walks away, they go and inspect the food bowl hoping there will be something in but there never is. Whether I eventually let Cyril eat with them will depend on a lot of things, he isn't a greedy dog but had known what it is like to starve, he may not take well to eating in the same room. I may have food guarding issues when I first get a dog but it never lasts, that goes quickly because my dogs realise that food is not going to be taken off them and is the main reason I feed a new dog in a different room so they can eat in peace. Cyril just has a gate between him and the other 3 now, he used to have a door.

Growling is communication, I wish we could get this message out better then maybe dogs will not be punished for telling people to "Get lost", I can often tell what a dog is saying by the growl or bark, they are different for different things.

He told you, you listened, I wish more owners would listen to their dogs. It isn't only growling that tells us there is something wrong with our dogs, I was out walking Merlin when I noticed one of his hind legs wasn't stepping under his body as it should. Should I or should I not take him to the vet, was I an fussing owner etc. in the end I took him to the vet, it was a good job I did, he had a slipped disc that had calcified and was in danger of cutting through his spinal cord, if I hadn't taken him he would have become paralised and would have to be pts.

With a lot of people it is fear, they don't understand that the dog is communicating, a dog's growl can sound very intimidating when you have very little understanding of dogs. With other people they have to be in charge and to them a dog that growls is challenging them. There are many other reasons why as well.

My neighbour thinks my dogs are hooligans because they are lively, even my 9 year old is still full of life, nobody believes me when I tell them she is 9 because of the way she plays on the field with my Staffy, she holds her own with him. She has a Cocker Spaniel that is 7, to me her dog is depressed, she spends long hours on her own because they all work, I will go in sometimes depending on what the shifts are like. She is rarely taken for a walk and when her ears were infected and she warned them, they punished her which I stopped so they no longer punish her for this. My dogs are a lot more obedient that she is, they understand more, are more willing to play etc.

I took these dogs in they didn't have a choice so it is up to me to make their lives as happy as I can and that means learning to understand them and how they communicate.

Yours are very well behaved with their food! I agree, free feeding is not appropriate for some dogs, especially ones that are prone to overeating for whatever reason. Mine are all slow, meticulous eaters. The eldest especially likes to graze through the day, a few bites at a time. The bowls are rarely empty, but they get the same amount of food each day. Since I'm in pretty much all the time, I can follow who's eating when. It probably helps that they get mostly dry food. But we did have to bulk up the eldest after he became seriously ill, had to have major surgery, and lost a lot of weight... we did feed him his special dinners in a separate room, but more because he would surrender his sardines to the others than that they would take them off him. They knew he was getting sardines in there, but didn't fuss.

I hope some of this will help the OP! I think your point about listening is extremely important here. Many times behaviours that people think are aggressive really, really aren't. Taji, for example, is very vocal, but people think he's growling when he's only saying stuff. Habibi barks, but she usually does it while bouncing with her tail wagging. All the same people can think she's trying to kill them, when in fact she's rather nervous and trying to establish a distance, or so I think-- she can bark her silly head off at another dog, but if the other is friendly and they get to meet, it's all good.

I think what you are doing right is making the food a non-issue. Your dogs know their food is safe; no one is going to take it away. You can be near it and they know you're not going to contest them about it. When I've lifted bowls up, I've always put them back down within a minute, usually with a treat, so mine know that I'm not going to take it off them, but if I do muck around with it it's usually to their benefit as there'll probably be a treat in there, but the food is going to be there anyway, so meh.

Something that is very under-appreciated is how very, very good dogs are at listening to us. There is of course an ongoing debate about how long dogs have lived in cooperation with humans, but whether you side with the 10,000 year camp or the 36,000 year camp, that's still an amazingly long time. We've not only shaped them: they have evolved communication skills that even our closest ape relatives don't have as regards us. They understand hand gestures, they use eye contact (this is a threat to most animals; dogs use it to communicate, just as we do), they understand tone of voice and can learn many individual words to the point where some of us have to use codes to avoid referring to a treat if it's not forthcoming (veggie-tables and A-things for carrots and apples, here). Dogs can't hand-gesture or form words. They have quite limited tone of voice as compared to us. So why should they know and be so good at this stuff? They've met us more than half way. We owe it to them to understand them. We're supposed to be so smart. It should be within our capability.

Have you read any of Patricia McConnell's books? I recommend them to anyone-- she gives excellent advice on how to listen.

EDIT: In my opinion you can never be too fussy! If you're concerned, vet ho. I took my Laszlo to the vet when I found a lump, knowing that his sire had died of cancer-- turned out to be some mud. Vet didn't charge and thought that was a perfectly reasonable thing to be worried about.

I never even heard about this taking the dogs dinner away after they start eating it until recently.

Haven't had any of my dogs get nasty if you touch them or their food for some reason. Often pick the bowl up to put something else in it or just knock snout aside and scrape something in with the meal.

But I can remember always being told when I was a kid (err that would be 50 odd years ago) 'leave the dog alone when he's eating his dinner' or 'let the dog eat in peace'. And I'm sure I used to say much the same to my kids when they were tiddlers and growing up with a dog. Don't pull the dog about when she's eating her dinner. My biggest worry was the kids would EAT the dog food - dog already ate as much of theirs as she could get!

Does sometimes make you wonder how all these family dogs managed without all this specialist advice, special telly programmes, (no internet then) and hardly anyone took their dogs to 'training' either. And the vast majority of family dogs just mooched about the streets all day and came in at night. No laws about not having your dogs off lead or on lead then.

Yet they say dog attacks on humans are on the increase every year even with all the publicity now given to training and behavioural stuff?

Tang:

When I got my first dog ever, it was one of the established training methods, alongside alpha rolling, which I would never do now. You had to own the dog's food, all the time, so the dog would be calm and submissive if you snatched it away. I'd never do this now. I think it is much better to establish trust, as you have with yours-- consciously or not, since they don't mind you touching them or their food. If they're comfortable with you being around them when they're eating: check. Can you be near their food when they're eating? Check. Can you touch them or the food when they're eating? Check. Can you snatch the food away?

Well maybe if you have to, but not in your own house, with your ow food, in your own bowls. Breed trust.

I have had to stick my hand down Berkeley's throat, to retrieve a cooked, splintered bone. Some person keeps leaving them in the woods. I would really like to find this person and tell them why they shouldn't do that.

I had to snatch a fish head out of my Akita's mouth after he found it on the canal path. It had a three prong fish hook in it. I would really like to find whoever left that and refer them to the last person.

I could not do these things if my dogs didn't trust me with food, or with their mouths. Trust is the most important thing, always.

My dogs don't come trusting with food, 3 came from a pound so were strays, the other was probably a stray but as she had both her back legs broken the Dog Warden let her go into a rescue so she could have the right vet treatment. Cyril, Staffy, was only 12kg when he came, he is just over 24kg now, all his muscle had gone, he was just a head with a skeleton covered in skin behind, a very good case for him to be food aggressive.


You don't need a hoover to pick up food when you have a dog.

Like you I was always told to let the dog eat in peace and did the same with my sons, my dog also had a place were my children were not allowed to go near her if she was there, her bed, that was for her to relax and rest, if she wanted to play she would come out.

Dogs lived a more natural life then, they were loose on the roads without fear of them being run over and got all the exercise they needed without having to be taken for walks. No excess energy meant dogs were much better behaved at home and quickly picked up what they should or should not do. It is with the increase in the traffic on our roads that meant dogs have to be kept on a lead, given enough exercise and we have to do more training with them to help them live in our society.

When you first get a dog the dog rarely trusts you completely, messing about with his food or bowl is asking for trouble, the dog doesn't know that you are just checking that you can do this, to your dog he thinks you are taking his food away and you can be bitten. It is better to let a dog settle in first, learn the house rules etc. if you can work in the same room as the dog when he is eating without a problem, what is there to check? As he settles more you can get nearer and nearer while you are working, so why do you need to check? You can have a good idea of how your dog will react if you touch him when you put the bowl down for his to eat, watch his body language, there is not need to check. As your dog builds up trust there won't be any need to check if you can snatch the food away, even when I need to move or pick up the bowl I never snatch it, I speak to my dog first, ask him if it is ok if I get his bowl, etc. then I can slowly pick his bowl up. Merlin was food aggressive to humans when he came, it didn't take long for him to trust me enough to let me do what I wanted when he was eating but I never done it without a good reason.


We have all had to do this with our dogs but what is much better is for your dog to drop it on command, that is easier to say than do because it depends on how high a reward the dog thinks is in his mouth. No matter what it is a dog may not obey when you ask him to drop if because to him the reward is much better, we can't give them a reward that is high enough so we also need to be able to open a dog's mouth to get something out, we can only do that if the dog trusts us and we trust the dog.

Well quite! I've hooked a chunk of GLASS out of Bella's gob while we were out and I could see she 'had summat in her mouth'. And if I hadn't been able to stick my hand down her throat I wouldn't have been able to retrieve the bit of rawhide she was choking on. Just haven't ever given any thought to 'training my dog' to allow me to do anything like this - not even when I had GSDs.

I honestly think that if the last 40 odd years of dog ownership had involved even HALF the stuff I read about these days I would have given it up after the first one or two!

I sometimes think I am alone in having not only had dogs for so long that didn't have any of the horrendous health probs we read about (and who didn't have their own dietician! or behavourist!) but who didn't 'go for other dogs' - never blerdy heard of all this DA the all that before.

I think, looking back over my life and dogs there were good dogs and a few 'bad dogs' (don't all jump on me saying there is no such thing - I am speaking about my recollections - like it or not) dogs you could trust and a few you couldn't. Kids would be told not to 'touch strange dogs' but they all did anyway! Dogs ran the streets - no one formally trained them - most of them were mongrels but boy were they 'smart'! We'd take them out with us on the trains and buses over to Wanstead Flats or the parks (you had to sit upstairs on the bus if you had a dog with you). They ate what they were given. Never saw a dog in a CRATE in my life until I was about 40 odd! I seem to recall almost all dogs chased cats. And I'm talking about growing up in the middle of London - not some leafy suburb or out in the country.

I sometimes think all the problems and all the solutions and advice and all that must have come about with the growing popularity of 'pedigree dogs'.

When I was a nipper our dogs were acquired because someone was going to drown the litter in a bucket if no one took them. Or they just 'adopted' you and hung about your house. Cats sat on the windowsill all day and got kicked out at night. The dog had to come in!

Oh and no one, absolutely no one had their dogs or cats neutered!

Sorry-- by 'check' I meant 'Yup!' not 'Make sure'.

I do teach 'drop it' but I find that the Akita particularly is hopeless at it. He will let me reach into his mouth, though he won't let anyone else so much as touch his feet. And there are those times you can't reward-- like 'I'm pretty sure you have a fish hook in your throat and you are going to the emergency vet immediately and there will be no treats lest you swallow it further down and no fun, oh, and by the way, GIVE ME THAT RIGHT NOW'. So, yeah-- trust.

Messing around with the food is one of the first things I've done. It has suited my own dogs' temperaments-- it probably isn't for everyone. Each will eat from my hand if I pick up some kibbles from the bowl. I wonder if they'd be the same if someone else reached into their food? I honestly don't know.

One of the first things Taji did when I was walking him at the kennels before we could adopt him was eat the top half of a Buckfast bottle. He just picked it up, crunched it up, and swallowed. I was NOT expecting that! Luckily, he was fine, with a lump of cheese as big as his head to bind it (for the record, white bread is a better binder).

I agree with you. There are a lot of fashionable training methods out there that are just there because they are fashionable, but fashions go in and out: witness the decline of the Alpha Roll. At the same time there are tried and true methods like beating a dog senseless for undesirable behaviours. It works! It'll put a stop to the behaviour. People didn't always appreciate the costs. And people didn't always have the guts to question 'professionals' when they spouted their advice, even when it was against everything they felt. I think I never have enough to learn.