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Location: Essex UK
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 3,424
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Originally Posted by
Wysiwyg
I'd agree with what Ben and Tassle have suggested with a few variations perhaps ... you firstly do great to manage the situation, and as you say being human you just got distracted.
I'd either distract (ringing the doorbell often does it
) or sacrifice the item if it's not dangerous or else use a lead to loop calmly over the head
.
I think, IMO (not criticising) is that she may have got defensive because you said No, probably with certain body language...she may even see that as a cue to confrontation.
Do you feel her ignoring your command/guarding was something you had to tackle by pinning or did you do it as you felt she needed punishment, or were you afraid she may have taken something dangerous?
Would you have considered walking away?
What can also work is a really special treat (eg, tripe sticks?) which I play find in the kitchen with my own dog, I call her and we both get Very Excited, she's allowed to accompany me to the cupboard and help me get the bag, with lots of excitement and she sees the Getting of the Stick as a huge bit of fun and reward ... that for us always overtakes anything else (even a bit of cheese wrapper she found once) and you may find the same, for example if you got her into such a game you could then, when she had the problem item, just say normally "Let's get the tripe stick) and I would expect if your body language was normal you'd find she'd go for it.
Another thing I've noticed is that if you get a dog into the habit of something, and repeat it daily then that often seems to totally overcome almost anything else, the tripe stick we have fun with daily
As humans we sometimes make things more of a problem
by A) showing dogs we think they have a huge resource and B) using slighly confrontational body language or angry/warning tones which IME make things 10 times worse
Wys
x
Firstly this is
not an everyday occurance...
In this case, I was worried there maybe something dangerous in the bin that she should not have, so yes. I thought I should deal with her. She has had a problem with food aggression since she was a tiny puppy. We have worked on it, dropping treats into the food bowl, feeding by hand, scatter feeding and otherwise made the foodbowl itself not the most valuable resource in the world. She is now fine about her food bowl and though I do not take her bowl away, I am not afraid that I could not if I need to.
Kismet has to be kept calm where food is concerned, if you get her excited or wound up with food 'playing with a tripe stick' for example, she immediately seeks out and attacks the other dogs to move them away from the yummy treat. If no other dogs, she will get agitated and attack her own tail. We combat this by staying calm around treats and all dogs have to take turns and leave it when the others have their treats. She is fine if there is no obvious excitement or confrontation.
However, in the event she oversteps the mark or gets over excited I have found only holding her until she calms down seems to work..."time out" in another room made her run in and attack the other dogs when released from the other room, having a house lead on got caught on things and seemed too dangerous...
I stress again, she was a very angry little puppy, but at a year old, we v
ery very rarely (almost never) have any incidents, we are careful around food, but in all other respects, she's just fine. I gave this example because it was an incident that arose recently and I am genuinely interested to see if there is something else - outside of the 'alpha' type training that we have been using with her so far.
ETA: I am definitely going to try 'ringing the doorbell - well knocking on the door shuld a similar situation arise. Non food distraction might be just the thing, then lead on while we go clear up... Hopefully wont be another slip, but I'lllet you know how it goes if we do...
My only fear with her is that she'll get like this around something like a child's dropped ice cream and come into conflict with a child... I don't want to keep putting her in dangerous situations so that we can train her to avoid them, but I'd like to break her of this completely so we don't have to keep watching her.