Eek! He's never done THAT before. :(

[Sandy]

Last night Toby, age 3, had a bone.  It was time to go out for his bedtime "pee".  My husband told him to come out, and he didn't move.  He tried again, nothing.  He went over to Toby and went to move the bone, and Toby SNARLED at him, and ran out the door with the bone.  He laid in the middle of the yard, and knew he'd been bad.  My husband followed him and just kept telling him to drop it.  After a couple of minutes Toby dropped it, and hubby brought the bone in the house and threw it in the garbage.  

 

My concern is this - we are having our first grandchild in December.  What if Toby gets possessive around the baby?  What if the baby reaches for one of Toby's toys and he doesn't like it and snaps?  What is Toby grabs something of the baby's and gets possessive?  Admittedly I am a worry wart, but I don't ever want anything to happen to the baby, and clearly Toby will move one more step down the ladder as far as position in the family goes.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

This is called resource guarding and there have been tons of discussion on DK about this subject.

http://www.doodlekisses.com/group/doodlewhisperers/forum/topics/res...

Here is just one.

We had a dog that did this..she came to us as a rescue dog. I would never have taken anything from her mouth, because she would bite, for sure. I traded her for something even better. It sounds to me like Toby tested the waters and then listened and dropped the bone for your husband. I think you just need to work on more training with Toby and now is a great time, before the new baby gets here.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Sounds like good suggestions to me.

[Joani, Skadi & Elli]

Resource guarding can be very dangerous with little ones around.  Especially when the dog has a special treat or around it's food.  Best to nip it in the bud ASAP...takes training but well worth it

[Jennifer,Chloe & Myla]

Myla does this at night too if we have to wake her up to go out. She can get pretty nasty. We have been letting her take her toy to bed but then we make her leave it and give her a small treat and take the toy away. We cannot just take it out of her mouth.Hope it gets better.

[Sandy]

That's my thought - offer a higher incentive treat to remove a lesser desired item. That has always worked in the past.  Some people say you should never offer a treat for in exchange for less than desired behaviour, but to me that is the simple solution.

[Stella]

Wow, didn't think Toby had it in him to do that!  Definitely go back to the puppy "leave it & take it" game, and work on exchanging toys/ bones etc for other items.  He has to learn that those toys are yours and that you are letting him play with them, they do not belong to him. 

[Sandy]

Thanks Stella. I think one thing I'm going to do is just throw out any of the bones that we have other than nylon bones. They don't invoke the same reaction.