RESOURCE GUARDING

[Lynne Fowler-Oodles of Doodles]

I WILL NOT SHARE MY TOYS...FOOD...BED...........

[Jacquie Yorke (DRC)]

Ali Baba Bunny

[Richard Crowe]

LUCKY RESOURCE HOARDING
There was a bright spot in the somewhat dreary TV news a couple of weeks ago . Apparently a car with a family and their Rottweiler was involved in an accident. The family was taken to a hospital but, the Rottie ran off in terror. A lady who raised Rottweiler's saw this Rottweiler by the road near where the accident happened. She stopped to help the animal who had made a nest of what he could find of his family's possessions. One of those possessions was their auto insurance policy and though this, the dog was reunited with his family who had been discharged from the hospital. Resource guarding paid off in that case!

[Lynne Fowler-Oodles of Doodles]

Wow. That's amazing and really a great story.

[Richard Crowe]

FOOD GUARDING

Let me add something to my resource hoarding post. I have raised over a hundred dogs from puppy-hood to when they were old enough to go to their new homes (we raised Maltese) and I have had loads of other dogs that lived long and happy lives with us.

One thing that I have always done is to give them their food and take it away as puppies. I will do this several times during each eating period at the start and do it occasionally as long as they are with us. That way they get used to someone handling their food and accept is as natural. They will also learn that the food is not going to disappear, so they don't have to defend it.

We have fostered many Maltese rescue dogs and I try to indoctrinate these dogs into not fighting for their food. However some of them have lived such traumatic lives that I don't want to further traumatize them by frightening them regarding their food. I play it by ear with rescue dog and have never failed to win one over (although it sometimes takes a while). We will not place a dog in a new home until that dog has been totally socialized and has most unwanted behaviors eliminated (or at least significantly reduced).

We want our rescue dogs to go to "forever homes" and bad habits are often a reason dogs are dumped into shelters or, even worse, dumped along a road. We have a lot of time to bring along a dog gradually and we have the training experience to back it up. We have had foster rescues with us for over six months until we felt they were ready for their "forever home".

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

I did a search on the topic of "Growling" and this is the link that came up. I have been having a problem recently with Sophie! She has always sort of been the dominate personality (translate princess) even though she is the smaller of the two. Recently she has started this really low growling when Lucy gets near something that she doesn't want her to have (like her toy or bone.) She might even have 2 bones and be chewing on one and the other might be 3 or 4 feet away, but Lucy should not go near that bone either! Unless she actually goes and growls and takes something away from Lucy I normally just let them sort it out. I can walk up and take whatever it is away from her and she doesn't growl at me. She looks at me like I'm crazy and follows me to see where I put whatever it was, but never has she growled. Last night however, Sophie was in her room eating. Lucy was in the room just laying on her pillow. Occassionally Sophie would turn around and look at Lucy and growl because Sophie had her bone laying on her pillow behind where she was eating and wanted to be sure Lucy wasn't going to take it. I didn't think too much about this until when Sophie finished eating and went to her pillow and started chewing on her bone, Lucy then headed towards the food bowl and Sohie growled at her and started back towards the food bowl. At that point I intervened and put Sophie in a down stay on her pillow and then coaxed Lucy back over to the food bowl. This is a first for the food growling. They have always, since they were puppies, eaten from the same bowl (their choice, I bought separate bowls). However, they always chose to eat from the same one. The entire time that Lucy was eating she was looking at Sophie and then looking at me! There is always food in their bowl, so there is never a shortage of food. They have never been food hogs. One eats one side of the bowl and leaves the other side for whomever hasn't eaten yet. Not sure if this is something that I need to worry about, or if they will just sort it out. It isn't a big ole mean growl, and she doesn't snap at her or anything it is just sort of a little low sort of warning growl! Again, she doesn't do it to me. I could take her food away mid bite and she wouldn't growl at me. Thoughts anyone?