For those who believe in positive reinforcement...

[Christy&Riley]

How do you handle it if doodle growls at you? Riley had something in her mouth and I told her several times to drop it. She then growled low at me. She is almost 11 months old. Thanks.

[Deborah Brown]

I wouldn't react to the growl.  I would only react to the drop.  What did it take to get her to drop it?  Did you have to wrestle it out of her mouth?  

I will use my very deep voice to give the DROP command.  I will also have a really good bribe in my hand.  Clearly this is going to take a huge effort if she wants to hold onto it that badly.  She needs to make the decision to do the right thing.  And you need to reward her for that.  Sometimes it helps if I tell my dogs to SIT or STAY first.  

Sometimes it seems counter intuitive and you don't want to reward her for stealing the rib roast off the table.  But that is a done deal.

The growl is a warning to you that she is serious.  It is a heck of a lot better than a snap or a bite!  And you want to diffuse the situation as quickly as possible.  Then make a mental note to manage things better in the future so that the two of you are not having a show down.

[Sharon & Monty]

good thoughts Deborah. DH decided to chide our dog on his first raw bone, Monty wasnt even sure about it at first.  Along come DH to play "what do you got, give it to me"  Monty growled, gritted his teeth, but here was the laziest, calmest dog ever.  I kept telling DH to knock it off, dog needed time to access the situation, the sad part was after conjoling the dog Monty snapped at his hand.  Not a big boo boo, but never the less he had to step back. and accept that a dog is a dog at a certain point.  

I agree to have a trade piece. We now give Monty more space when he first gets a premium piece like a raw bone, baby steps. However we practice that when given the command that he needs to let go.  In our case it was a brand new fabulous treat and we realized he meant business to protect it.

[Deborah Brown]

Too bad about the snap.  I guess Monty wasn't taking the growl too seriously.  Dogs can be very protective over something like a raw bone.  You'll have to assess your situation and decide whether or not Riley can handle raw bones.  For something like that, I know if I give one to my dogs, I need to leave them in peace for about half an hour.  After that I can put it away or whatever.  But I won't give them a premium treat unless I know I can give them the time and space to enjoy it.  It's funny but because we have three doods, after 20 minutes or so they all are eyeing each other's bone and do a trade.  The grass is always greener...

[Christy&Riley]

It wasn't a bone. Something she picked up in the house but I couldn't see it. I could just tell she had something. I'm too chicken to try to pry her mouth open. She is stubborn and very strong. While I know she wouldn't intentionally bite me...I don't think...I'm concerned she would snap down on me if I got her mouth open because she is fighting so hard. In a deep voice I said NO. She was already on the floor so I held her down on her side for a second to show I'm serious. ( I know, everyone doesn't agree with this) I then made her go to her crate. I let her out and a bit later when she had a toy in her mouth I told her to drop it. She did so with tail wagging. I coddle her a lot with sitting with me, etc so I'm concerned she doesn't view me as an authority figure. I'm not a fan of trading up outside of training. She should drop it because I said so and not because I have something better. Giving her something in exchange for a growl seems like I am rewarding the growl.

[Deborah Brown]

Sorry!  I was confused.  I thought Sharon & Monty's response was your reply.  

My advice still stands.  You don't want to get into a show down with your dog.  You want to diffuse the situation as calmly as possible.  Sometimes you have to go in there and pull things out.  Penny has snarfed dead birds, squirrel entrails, etc. on our walks and I've had to pull them back out.  It's disgusting!  But to get her to release, I threw a bunch of liver treats on the ground in front of her. Your dog's safety and health is more important than your pride.  We also had a week where I was regularly trading cookies for mangled legos.  <sigh>

What is your training for if not for a situation like this?  If you trained her with treats to DROP then if you expect her to generalize her training, you must be willing to pay.  We all wish our dogs did what we told them just because they love us.  :)  

[Julie and Max]

At some point you should be able to phase out treat training with every command including drop it. Also if you've only trained your dog to listen to you with treats, what happens when you don't have any treats to give? There are some great videos out there on training the drop it command without treats, or without trading. Everyone trains in different ways, but having to leave your dog alone with something because they might bite you could lead to problems at some point. What if a child or neighbor tries to take something from the dog and they bite? I have found hand feeding at least part of Max's food each day helps a lot. I also started with lower value items that he had and I would say "whatcha got?" Calmly take it from him, then give it back. I then worked up to higher value items. If I had a problem with growling or any aggressive behavior the item went away. I don't leave any toys or bones on the floor. I give him the toys or bones and then I put them away. 

[Christy&Riley]

Julie - our trainer was very opposed to treat training and I was amazed at how easy it was for him to teach Riley without them. He said that you want the dog to obey because you said so and not because you have a treat because what happens when the treat goes away. I think that makes sense. There was a point where I felt comfortable making her open her mouth and she would comply. Lately she has been refusing. In tonight's situation I think I said something like your "whatcha got" with a friendly voice to try and get her to open. I thought in the past my serious voice when trying to open made it more confrontational. It appears that "nice" didn't work tonight so I got more serious with my voice. I also tried to get eye to eye with her to make her look at me when I said drop it. That may have caused an instinct growl because it was too competitive. Probably a bad idea. Sigh...

Very curious about your toy "process." We have toys everywhere and she runs back and forth with them. Do you make Max earn a toy before playing with it? Do you allow more than one toy a a time? Are there benefits you are seeing...besides a clean house! :-)

[Julie and Max]

Christy I used to allow him to have all the toys ad bones he wanted but I ended up with two problems.

Firstly, he started resource guarding, which I wanted to nip i the bud right away.

Second, Max is the destroyer of toys lol...so for his safety I don't want him to have anything unsupervised, and I also want him to realize all good things in life come from me. 

I do make him do something before I give him something always but it's just a sit or a down or a 20 second stay. 

I did have a toybox for his toys, but he actually ate that and I haven't had a chance to get a new one (obviously didn't eat the whole thing but you get the picture) 

I actually find that he enjoys his toys more now that he doesn't have them all the time, like they have more value. I give him one thing at a time, either a bone, or a kong, or the one stuffy that he hasn't destroyed. He also has an everlasting treat ball that he enjoys and a food puzzle toy. 

I will randomly take it from his mouth, look at it and say "Max has a nice toy, or nice bone" then give it back to him. I usually don't take it completely away from him until he's lost interest in it. 

I also make sure I can touch his food about every other day, and I will throw random tiny pieces of chicken or cheese into his dish when I dish feed him which actually isn't that often now that I think about it.

I do hand feed part of his dinner every night while petting him. Then for the rest of his meals I make him forage, so I use different things, like kongs (I mix his kibble with yogurt, pumpkin and usually tiny bits of chicken) and stuff kongs, and then I use the food puzzle for plain kibble, and I also hide the kongs/kibble in margarine containers around the kitchen. It sounds kind of silly, but it takes him about 30 minutes to find all the food lol. 

For awhile when he was little he had some resource guarding issues, and now he is great except with two things and that is kleenex and dead things which we are still working on. 

I do occasionally treat train but I also train without treats, and phase out the treats pretty quickly with anything new we're working on. I agree with your trainer and they really need to listen to you because you are the leader and I don't mean that like all "I'm the leader you must obey!" more a calm gentle but firm leader which it sounds like you get. 

I think that Riley is in the adolescent phase though? Maybe try going back to basics and just run through all the stuff you know works, and work up to the stuff that Riley has maybe regressed a little on?

[Julie and Max]

I also agree with you about getting right down on eye level might have been too competitive but that is such a hard one to figure out how to do it just right. The too nice never really works for me, but I know I have to be careful not to make it a competition because Max can be stubborn, so finding just the right combo isn't always easy especially if it's something I feel may harm him, or if it's a dead thing because that just stresses me out on the level of grossness. 

[Christy&Riley]

Max and Riley have toy box eating and a love of Kleenex in common. I bought these cute boxes that sat on her crate to hold toys, etc. My husband noticed recently that the bottoms had been eaten. Sneaky....

I sometimes put her food in a puzzle too. One time I put it in an empty peanut bottle with the top off. I video taped her trying to figure out how to get it out. It took a few minutes just to push it over and I gave up when she was sticking her tongue way in trying to lick it out. My Mom said it was mean. I said it was teaching her to think creatively.

Treat training for "drop it" was a disaster because she lost all interest in the object and just wanted more treats. Instead I taught it by throwing a toy which she gladly chased and returned...but wouldn't drop it. I made her drop it before I threw a different toy. Works fairly well except she gets going and drops the toy halfway in anticipation for the next one. Not really a true drop it on my command but I think she gets it.

Thankfully, she only picks up leaves, Kleenex (which I no longer drop), and rubber mulch. She has absolutely no "leave it" skill. I tried with treats and toys but didn't work well. This spring I'm going to have the trainer get us started on that. It is a critical command we need to learn because I'm not seeing myself being able to take anything living or dead out of her mouth. I can't touch those creatures on their own let alone once she has squished them in her mouth. UGH...

[Pam Thomas]

Great! New ideas to add to my collection from DK for when I get my doodle  in July-love DK

[Deborah Brown]

I'm impressed that you've been successful as treat-free training.  Do you use something else as a reward?  Just praise?  It sounds ideal but for my dogs, I don't think I could ever get a strong recall or in the discussion here, a drop of something important.  I don't hand out treats for routine stuff every day but I do for a recall from the back yard.  This has always been a tough one because they can be busy watching squirrels, dogs passing our fence, the neighbors, etc. and I need to make sure they will come NOW.