I haven't read all the posts so I am sure all of this isn't relevant to you, but this is a post i wrote previously. It is very common to be told that we must be able to take a dog's bowl away but in most cases this makes the issue worse rather than better.

Personally i would go back to hand feeding or dropping a couple of pieces of kibble of food in the bowl at a time to get her really keen on you being near her bowl, and then build up to the rest of the stuff suggested in my previous post.

I would also feed her seperately to avoid any further incidents.

"This is normal behaviour. I don't believe it should be Nipped in the bud, i believe as soon as you get a puppy you should be teaching it that it doesn't have to guard it's food from you.

E.g. - when feeding a puppy, right from day one, you should take a very very tasty treat and plunge your hand into it's food bowl when they are eating, dig around for a bit and pull out the really good treat and offer it to them. From this they learn that it is great to have people around thier food because the person always finds better bits than they can!

In The Perfect Puppy by Gwen Bailey, she goes into good detail about how you can take this further, as well as how to teach off in a very positive way.

A dog should be happy for you to be near them when they are eating of chewing on a bone and the only reliable way to do this is to convince them that it is good to have people around them when they are chewing and eating.

If you shout at them, or take their food away in a dominering way you can end up with:-

- a dog that guards it's food more

- a dog that will let you do it but no one else.

- a dog that increases the distance around it it feels it needs to keep people away from it when it is chewing.

- a dog that sizing up the opposition before deciding whether to give up or guard the food. THIS IS PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION TO HAVE DEVELOPED IF CHILDREN ARE EVER TO BE NEAR YOUR DOG.

Dogs guard their food becuase they are concerned you are going to take it from them. If you:

- growl at them
- shout at them
- take their food away from them in a challenging way

you are confirming their fears! They know aren't worried that you are going to take it away from them....THEY KNOW YOU ARE!!!

We need to out think our dogs and show the the boundless benefits of joining our team rather than meeting them head to head at the base level of thinking."

2 things. find someone who does NAET (www.vetnaet.com) and/or find a communicator
these are emotional problems and must be dealt with in
that manner
google.......... Elizabeth Servino is a good communicator

dr mark

100% I agree with everything Catrin said.

This is exactly my philosophy and I did have a potential resource guarder in my boy yet following these priniciples he's absolutely fine even with prize bones.

Thank you Ziva

Back to basics with Kismet it is then... I hand fed her last night and 'found' special treats, but she gets into this odd obsessed focus and she's hard to get through to when she has her food focus on!

I have tried never to be aggressive or stern around her at meal time and always use positive training methods. I don't just take her bowl away from her, I ask her to wait and give her a better treat, or add something nice to her bowl, then she can resume.

I too worry about her and children believe me! Fortunately I don't have any, but Halloween is fast approaching and I will be having my annual party. It will be Kismet's first party and there will be treats and crisps on tables and lots of people around! I just don't want her to disgrace me!

I'm sure she won't as you will have thought of all this already, as just in case its all too much temptation for her she will be snuggled down after a mega walk with a kong or two, well out of the way upstairs!

Taki is never with children and food. She is so much better now than before but I could never trust her 100%, so she is stress free, elsewhere when kids and food are around.

To be fair to Kismet, she's as good as gold with her Kong, happy to give it to you to put more yummies in. Which makes me wonder if the dinner bowl thing may be something like catrinsparkles said in her post. She doesn't think anything I have offered her at meal times is better than her dinner, so she has come to fear the tidbits and intrusion around meal times that I have tried to use to break her food aggression, I'm going to try a more gentle approach and stop making her dinner quite so yummy, so that what I can add to it will be higher value.

The party plan: I'm going to take her bed and toys upstairs and put them in my room, so she wont have any confusion about ownership of toys or territory. I'll see how she does as the first couple of guests arrive and then if she is calm, I'll set my usual friends - the ones who come over regularly and know Kismet well (about half the party) on Kismet watch. If she seems to be getting too hyped up or stressed, she can have some time out in the bedroom. All parents will have been warned that kids must not give the puppy tidbits... (though if previous parties are anything to go by it will be the adults that will be the worst treat offenders). By 10.00 or so all dogs will be upstairs anyway, curtains closed and music playing, while there are fireworks in a neighbours garden (they popped a note round to warn us which was nice of them). After the fireworks, if all else has been calm, they can come back down again.

It's good you use positive methods, in fact excellent but I'm wondering if you have removed the food (or asked her to stop eating when she is part way through her food? ) often? as if so, that could have some bearing on her behaviour now

I'm not sure from your answers - it seems you do training around the food bowl whilst she's eating, but I'm not clear exactly whatyou do, what is done regularly, or what has been done exactly in the past? Sorry it's probably me not comprehending.

We do need to be able to handle our dogs, and remove bowls if there is an emergency, but I'm also a firm believer in not messing too much with them when they are eating. Except for maybe adding the odd gorgeous bit of food occasionally to reinforce that people around food bowls are great.As humans we underestimate just how very important a mealtime is to a dog. I'd go bonkers if people kept interrupting me when I ate and would start to obsess

Also, do you know how she was fed when a very small pup? sometimes if pups are fed together (for instance from a "Mexican hat"! ) they can learn inappropriate behaviour...

To answer Wysiwig and an update.
When Kismet first arrived she was crazy about food, the puppies had been fed in a half drainpipe trough and Kismet being the dominant female had been used to fighting to get more food than the other puppies. So obviously from the time I got her home this was something we worked on. offering treats while she was eating, trying to slow her down, by scattering some of her food, or hand feeding. She wouldn't allow anyone near or to touch her while she was eating and could be seriously aggressive about it, she would wolf hers then try and fight the other two for theirs. I knew she was going to grow to be a big dog, so felt that for everyone's safety this was something I needed to tackle while she was small. We did training around the bowl and added tasty treats. We did teach her to stop mid meal so that we could take the bowl and in hindsight that was possibly not the best thing to do, but it was what we were advised by the vet at the time and I guess we live and learn!

In the last couple of days we have been part hand feeding, offering treats during mealtimes and giving treats to all the dogs together clearly and in turn and have resumed the training to leave treats on the floor until they are picked up and given. Kismet seems to be settling down again and being less stressed.

I was very proud of her last night at dinner as she allowed Pharaoh to sniff about in her bed after her dinner with out a growl and this morning allowed Selkie to take her bone that she was finished with. She sat by Selkie and waited patiently for her to get bored before taking it back and hiding it in her bed. So marked improvements.

I am optimistic that this will be something we can crack! Thanks to everyone on here for their help and support. Its hard sometimes when you're training but not seeing instant results, or it seems to take a step back like this did, you can start to doubt yourself; and with the best will in the world, we all make mistakes. I just don't want Kismet to ultimately pay for mine!

Well done.
when you say give treats half way though meal times what do you do?
Only asking so I can try it on Dori.
She has been better over the last few days I have been making her sit when I put her bowl down then she has to wait until I tell her to eat.
I do take the bowls away when they have finished as they are empty but have left them down don't know if that has made any difference.