Resource Guarding

Resource Guarding

By: LukEli K-9, Dog Training Behavior Modification Professionals

 

Resource Guarding is an often loosely used term. Many people have the idea that a dog guarding its resources does so in a way as to declare his “dominance” and power over his subordinates, i.e., his owners. While a dominate aggressive dog most always shows some resource guarding behaviors, not every resource guarder is dominant aggressive (stay tuned to learn more about dominance aggression in our upcoming blogs).

Before we continue on, let me make clear what it means for a dog to be a resource guarder: a resource is anything the dog sees as necessary for its survival: food, a dog bone, water bowl, people, a favorite toy, a certain spot on the bed, the couch, floor space, a blade of grass. All of these things and more can be seen as a resource worth protecting to dogs.

When talking about resource guarding behavior, another point to think about is this; not every guarder will bite, snap or even growl, as a guarding display. In some cases the dog just simply does not allow you to have the object by walking away with it. Other signs of a guarder are: body freezes, stiffness, tongue flicking, and “whale eye”.

One of the most common myths regarding resource-guarding behaviors is that genetics are to blame and thus the behavior cannot be changed. This is untrue, although some dogs may exhibit this behavior as a pup or adolescent, resource guarding has not been linked to any specific gene in dogs’ DNA. That being said, it is of the utmost importance to perform some of the exercises we will be discussing in this blog to prevent any formations of resource guarding behaviors in the future. These exercises will also help to counter condition any dog that has already begun showing signs of resource guarding.

I would also like to remind you again that Guarding of Resources although common in dominant aggressive dogs does not automatically mean your dog is “dominant”. If you have not read our blog “Who’s the Boss”, in which we discuss some of the problems with the way dominance theory was derived, I highly recommend reading that before continuing.

Factors That May Affect the Onset of Resource Guarding.

It is not uncommon for many shelter and rescue dogs to exhibit some form of resource guarding. This is largely due to environmental factors such as abuse and neglect, which often times make dogs think they may need to guard their resources. In these instances the resource most commonly is food, treats, or anything that even remotely resembles food.

For dogs who show guarding behaviors towards food, especially rescue or shelter dogs, counter conditioning of these behaviors will be the best tool to use when teaching your dog that guarding is not necessary.

We discussed counter conditioning a few blogs back and have also discussed its use in detail for the rehabilitation of Hank, the Shar Pei/Catahoula mix. For those of you who may have missed it in the past I will give a short elevator description of what this means and how to use it to your advantage.

Counter Conditioning is done through taking a negative or unpleasant stimulus (taking the dogs food), and changing it into a positive good stimulus (you take the bowl add some chicken and give it back). This starting point of counter conditioning with every dog is different. Some more intense cases may require you start at a more comfortable distance say tossing food into the bowl from few feet away.

Object guarding is another form of resource guarding in which the dog guards toys, trash, or any other thing it puts in its mouth. Object guarding, though not quite as common as food guarding is prevalent in many housedogs in particular. In many cases our efforts to get back whatever thing the dog may have in his mouth often times is what leads the dog to feel it is necessary to guard it. If the human wants it so badly then it must be something of upmost importance, right?

This begs the question; what to do when your dog has decided to pick up a chicken bone he found out on a walk? While we most certainly do not want our dog to covet the dangerous piece of deliciousness, our overly exuberant efforts to convince the dog to spit it out immediately almost certainly encourage the dog to guard it even more or worse, swallow it all together. So what do you do?

I have to admit if you have not done any sort of counter conditioning or object exchange games with your pooch before this unfortunate event occurs it is highly unlikely that any effort on your part will convince your dog to spit out the ever so satisfying chicken bone. I am going to give you a tip on things to work on so as to prevent this from happening in the future.

Play the Object Exchange Game. This game is also the perfect way to teach “drop it” or  “leave it”. While your dog is playing with one of his most desirable toys approach him with a new and better toy or with high motivating treat. When your dog drops the toy in his mouth for whatever it is you are offering him in return say “drop it” and allow him whatever is in your hand as a reward. If practiced enough times the dog should form positive associations with giving up whatever you do not want him to have in his mouth in exchange for something better you represent.

The Third and final from of resource guarding I will mention is Location Guarders. A location guarder is one who feels the need to guard a certain spot in the living room, the bed, or position on the couch. Many times this form of guarding starts out so quietly most pet parents do not realize they have a problem until the day the dog bites or snaps at a person or other animal when asked to move from the place the dog deemed “his spot”.

A placement command/cue is often used to refocus the dog from location guarding to completing the task we ask of him. The most common cue used for placement training and our word of choice at LukEli, is “Off”. Make sure to not use the word down as that word already has a meaning completely different than what we want our dog to do. We are not asking the dog to lie down, we are asking them to get off the spot they are guarding. Make sure to use praise, food, toys or any combination of the three when training this command so that your dog forms a positive association with removing himself from the spot he feels he needs to guard.

It is important to understand that dogs displaying resource guarding behaviors are not doing so because they are conniving, stubborn, or dominant.  Dogs are animals, and are therefore hard wired to protect themselves and any resource they deem necessary for their survival.  Dogs do what works and in turn learn what works for them from every interaction with humans and other animals. A resource guarding dog is not born with the urge to attack any foreign object reaching for its resources. This behavior starts out small and through conditioned responses from animals and humans in the dogs surrounding, grows in intensity each time. Think of resource guarding as a small tropical storm, way out in the ocean. With each passing day the storm grows in intensity and destruction power. Your dogs guarding behaviors change in the same way. What starts out as a tropical storm, a dog who growls, quickly changes into a full fledge category five hurricane; biting, snapping, and snarling in order to get you to retreat past the dog’s reactivity threshold.

Resource Guarding is not something to take lightly no matter how small the intial onset of the behavior is. It will eventually become a problem for you and any other person the dog may come into contact with. If you are unsure how to begin counter conditioning your dogs resource guarding or would like to know how to stop it before it starts, do not hesitate to contact a professional behavior consultant right away. It is much easier to clean up the damage after a thunderstorm than to clean up the destruction left by a hurricane.