Help w/ Rottie pup

[schatzi14]

Hey all..my brother and SIL have added a female Rott pup to their household. Lexie is about 9 mos old now. My SIL is concerned because Lexie is starting to show food aggression...she won't let anyone come near her food bowl. Renee (SIL) seems to have done all the things I would have done when Lexie was a little pup...she would feed her, hand feed her, take the bowl away...put it back...What worried me was that the other day they put out a bowl of water w/ ice cubes and when my SIL went to take it away, the dog went to bite her. They have 2 young children...I have never dealt with this type of aggression before. My SIL said it's like Lexie is almost challenging you to come over and take what she has claimed. Food now, who knows what could be next.

Any suggestions?

[BR870]

This is common resource guarding. There are several threads on here about it..

Many behaviorists now say NOT to do the "take away/give back" thing. The theory is to a dog it makes you seem unfair and unpredictable and may actually provoke resource guarding. So she may have actually unintentionally made the dogs desire to resource guard worse.

That is not to say that you should not be able to take the bowl from your dog if needed. But just doing it at random... To the dog seems random, and definitely does not help them see you as fair and consistent.

[Caledon]

I've never took the food bowel away, but I would randomly walk up and add extra special treats to it. As I added I would put my hand in the bowel.

Since your sil is having a problem I would approach the dog and toss yummy treats into the bowel from a safe distance and gradually get closer and closer. I would stop tring to take the bowel from the dog.

Also what I have done from day one was get her in a down stay, fill the food bowel, walk away, return with a treat like a raw egg, then release to eat.

We never had a problem with guarding anything but I think these two suggestions would be a good start. I'm sure others with resource guarders will be able to offer more suggestions.

[schatzi14]

Thanks for those suggestions. She didn't make a habit of taking the bowl away...just occasionally when Lexie was much younger...along with all the other things...touching feet, body...it wasn't a habit of removing the food, just randomly here and there - that's why she's getting concerned now since Lexie is much bigger and getting older, the dog was always very sweet. I will tell her to google resource guarding and give her Caledon's suggestions.