The Prevention Series: Resource Guarding

00:00 — Kati Peppe introduces Off Leash and Unfiltered, a dog-training podcast specializing in e-collar training.

Welcome to Off Leash and Unfiltered Trigger Warning. I'm Kati Peppe, delivering the Truth in Dog Training.

Hey, this is your host, Kati Peppe, owner of Diamond Canine Dog Training in Biddeford, Maine. For those of you that are new here, we specialize in e-collar training. So we help dogs listen off leash and around distractions. Or if your dog's being an absolute total jerk, well, we can help with that too. We do it all and we do puppy training too. This podcast is just my way of sharing. Well, everything with you guys, the good, the bad, the ugly. And I will always be honest about how to fix the problems you might be dealing with with your dog.

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We appreciate you and without further ado, let's jump in. Probably wouldn't be recording too much without the microphone plugged in. So welcome to our prevention series where we're gonna talk about several, um, common problems, big problems, problems we see all the time. They're, they're common issues and they can be severe and they can be dangerous. Um, but we're gonna break 'em down one at a time. So today's episode is going to focus on resource guarding, and then hopefully you'll tune in for our next two episodes in the series, which are going to cover, um, separation anxiety as well as dog reactivity slash aggression.

A lot of overlap there. Not always easily distinguishable, but more or less really the same thing. Um, reactivity is really the assumption that there's no intent to cause damage or that the dog wouldn't cause any harm. Um, they just look very reactive. Um, and then obviously aggression wouldn't be the assumption that they are going to cause harm, but the fact is, sometimes we don't know <laugh>. But anyway, that's not what we're talking about today. Today we're gonna stick to resource guarding. And this has been one that's been, I've been mulling around a lot because I've been seeing, for whatever reason, I've been seeing so many, uh, reels and posts and, and things of that nature on social media from other trainers talking about resource guarding and how to prevent it.

03:00 — Resource guarding cannot always be prevented, but certain practices may reduce its likelihood.

And I think that's a little misleading because I don't think you can always prevent it. But I'm gonna talk about, um, the things you can do that are most likely to prevent it and what to do if you see it. Because here's the thing that they're leaving out. Genetics, genetics, genetics, guys, <laugh>. So resource guarding is a very natural behavior for dogs to do. I'm not saying it's acceptable. I'm not saying you shouldn't be concerned about it, I'm just saying it's a natural behavior, but some dogs are a lot more likely to do it than others.

Not all dogs have a strong proclivity toward resource guarding and some dogs do. So you've probably, if you've been listening to me for a while, you've probably heard me talk about, uh, the dog that got me into dog training and she was resource guarding from the time I brought her home at 11 or 12 weeks of age.

I, in fact, I saw it in the car on the way home. And that's not something you wanna see, especially at that young, young age. Like that's a huge red flag. But so it, I don't care what they were doing in that house where she was born, that's not something that they taught her to do. She's 12 weeks old. This is something that comes from within, right? And I say that every time we have a dog with any kind of issue because people tend to blame themselves. And I'm not saying that they didn't do anything wrong or that they couldn't have done anything better.

Most of the time there are things we could have done differently and better, but most of the time people are not responsible for the surfacing or generation of this behavior. They may very well have nurtured it. They may very well have handled it in not the best way and maybe inadvertently encouraged more of it, but they didn't make the dog the way that the dog is. That's just how the dog is. That's how the dog was born. Your dog is not born a blank slate. They're born with all of these tendencies built in.

So resource guarding is, uh, no exception. Um, so some dogs can go through their whole life and never show even the slightest bit, bit of resource guarding. And another dog might be like the dog I just described that I had, who shows it from a very young age and at a very intense level. And those two dogs could be in the same house raised by the same person and still have those two polar opposite behaviors. So I think it's important to understand that, and that is why I say like this whole, you know how to prevent resource guarding.

06:00 — Two dogs raised together can develop opposite guarding behaviors despite identical household environments.

I think it's a little bit bullshit <laugh>. So, but most dogs are not gonna be either extreme right? Meaning you've got the one dog that just never shows any sign of resource guarding in any context with any resource in any environment. And then you've got the other dog who's like insanely intense resource garter from a very young age, no matter the environment, right?

Most dogs are gonna be somewhere in the middle, somewhere in that gray area. And I think with a lot of those dogs, resource guarding can probably be avoided just by building the right relationship with them in the first place, right? So we get in a great deal of dogs who have bad behaviors at home and we never see them. They could be here for a month and we never see them, um, or we never see them to the full extent that they're displaying at home. And the reason for that is because these are pretty average, middle of the road, regular old dogs who, if they're with someone who says, Hey, I'm calling the shots, I'm making the decisions, I have expectations, I have standards, right?

And we make it clear to them what those are, we just never see the crappy stuff.

Like I, I never see it. I never even have to address it because they're just not gonna do it. Um, and so that is your best bet if you want to avoid or prevent resource guarding and might you still see it? Yep, absolutely. You can do everything right and still see it. Again, it just depends on the dog, um, and their, their DNA, their makeup. So, but how do we do that? How do we set ourselves up for success? Whether you're bringing home a puppy or you're bringing home an older dog, doesn't matter. The point is the dog is new to you, they're new to your home, your family, your environment, your household.

How do you set everything up for success so that you can hopefully avoid having these issues down the road? Or even if your dog isn't new you, right? Because here's the thing, and this is a good point to bring up 'cause we hear this all the time, right?

I've never seen him do that before. I've never seen her do that before. That's the first time she's ever done that. Guys, there's a first time for everything <laugh>. So if you have a dog right now that doesn't take you very seriously, kind of blows you off, pushes boundaries or maybe sometimes gives you a little sass, a little talk back, just because you haven't seen a severe behavior, just because you haven't seen resource guarding or extreme resource guarding, it doesn't mean you won't. So even if your dog's not new to you, this episode is still valuable.

These are still things that I would hope you would want to know and implement so that you can make sure you continue to get the best version of your dog possible. Because this is a thing a lot of folks have a hard time wrapping their head around guys, behavior is not stationary, it's not permanent. It doesn't just sit still. We like to think that it does, right? And then when we see someone, especially our dogs do something new out of the blue, we're like just totally baffled. We don't get it, we don't understand it, we don't know why, right?

10:00 — Dog behavior is not permanent; apparently new behaviors can emerge unexpectedly.

We're beating ourselves over the head because it's like, that's just reality behavior changes.

So yeah, most of the time we have our norm, right? The things that are normal for us. We have our routine, we have our patterns, especially as humans. A lot of us are creatures of habit, but sometimes they change, don't they? And sometimes it's an intentional change, but sometimes we just do something different and we don't know why. And that's normal, right? But once we do it once, we're more likely to do it again, right? And that's how new habits are formed. Behavior can just spontaneously generate, right? If it's in there somewhere in your DNA, the ability to do something, your brain could at any moment say, let's do this.

And your dog is no different.

And considering a dog doesn't have the ability to think things through, really, right? They can make associations, but they can't sit there and contemplate something in different scenarios and ways things could pan out, right? They're not doing that. They're not weighing that. Um, it just takes a split second for the brain to say, Hey, let's try this. And then you're off to the races. Um, and I think it pays to remember that, that it can just generate any time. And once it happens, it's more likely to happen again. And that's true. Each time it happens, the likelihood of it happening again increases and the intensity will also increase, right?

So frequency and intensity increase, um, most likely with every repetition of the behavior. So how do you build a relationship with your dog where you're not so likely to see resource guarding, right? So again, this isn't gonna prevent them all, but man, this is gonna comb out a great deal of the dogs who have it in there to resource guard, but they're not crazy resource guarders, right?

They're not like the pup that I had that was 12 weeks old and was like, ah, cut you <laugh>. And it was over something silly. Um, she was chewing on something, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't like a raw meaty bone. In fact, it was like some kind of wiring in the car, um, which is why I was trying to get her away from it. Um, but it was nothing that you would think is incredibly enticing, right? So for the vast majority of folks, if you do these things, there's a high likelihood you're never gonna see resource guarding, even if your dog has it in there.

Um, so yeah, we, we wanna do those things. So here they are. And I mean, if you've been listening to my stuff, these are, a lot of these things are not gonna be news to you. But hopefully, uh, you know, kind of hearing it again, it'll start to paint a clear picture for you how all these things are kind of tied together and also why we push these things so much and why we believe in them so much and why we have the success that we do with the dogs that we bring in.

Um, so right off the bat, number one is structure and reducing your dog's autonomy, right? So you bring home a new dog or you have a dog that's been with you for a long time, if they are always walking around doing their own thing, making their own choices, that's a mistake. That's not ideal. So what I mean by that is we really want your dog rehearsing doing what you tell them to do, respecting boundaries and having you control space. Um, so what that might look like at a minimum is putting your dog in a crate probably at least when you're not home and when you're asleep, right?

14:00 — Dogs should regularly practice following instructions, respecting boundaries, and avoiding unrestricted independent choices.

And that's still in my opinion, not enough structure <laugh>, especially if you have a dog that does have anything behavioral going on, but that's like the bare minimum where it's like I tell you to go into the crate, you go, okay, and then you stay there quietly until I tell you to come out, right?

In my opinion, I mean, I would also like to see folks using that crate sometimes even when they are home and they are awake, which most people don't do. Most people, if they're home and awake, the dog is just free to kind of do what they want. And people will say, well, I partition off this and that. I put a gate, he can't go upstairs. It's like, I get it. But that's not the same. Your dog is still moving around by choice pretty much where they wanna go within the confines of the gate, right? We want you to actually restrict freedom and control space in a way that says, I want you here <laugh>.

Um, so it's a little different if you're just using a gate to partition off part of your house. Um, and really ideally the way we like to do it is to not just use the crate. The crate is amazing, especially when you are gone or you are asleep. Um, but when you're home during the day, some crate time is great, but I also really like the place command, right? So teach your dog a place command and once they know it, teach accountability for it so that they don't just get up whenever they want to. So huge guys.

Huge, huge, huge. Now does it need to be the place command? No, it could just be a down command too. But, um, we like the place command. Usually what that means is we're teaching it on an elevated cod. It's raised up off the floor. Um, and dogs are very comfortable here.

17:00 — A place command creates a non-negotiable boundary that dogs must maintain until released.

They tend to like it. Um, I think that makes people feel better about it, you know, uh, so we love that. But the idea is you put your dog in a command and they have to stay there. The key word there is have to, so it's a non-negotiable instruction to your dog. That's the value of place, part of it, not all of it, but in the context of resource guarding, I think that's most of the value of place is like, it just sets up a dynamic where you get to rehearse with your dog. I tell you to do something, you do it even if you don't want to.

And if you don't, there will be a negative consequence for that. So guys, look, almost a hundred percent of the people we meet when we meet them, this is the thing that's lacking in their relationship with their dog, right?

And I know there's people out there that are like, this is all she ever talks about. It's the answer to everything. It's like, yeah, because it's what everybody is missing. It's what everybody is bad at and it's what everybody just doesn't know how to do. Even if they know they need it, they don't know how. There is absolutely nothing in people's relationships with their dog where there's any real expectation they think there is, right? 'cause they ask their dog to do things and maybe they even follow through pretty consistently and get them. But there's never, never, never a consequence for not doing the thing I wanted you to do.

That is usually 100% absent from the relationship. Hundred percent at best, the person is yelling and getting angry. Um, which honestly is not a good thing. And it's not a consequence, it's just conflict. So it's not helping, it's not making the situation better, especially with a resource garter that will often make things worse. So that place command is a little bit better than the crate, at least when you're home and awake and you're watching, because the dog has to respect that boundary. They have to choose to stay there even if they don't want to.

And that's huge, because if you put them in a crate and you shut the door, well, they have to stay in there, right? They don't really have a choice. So, I mean, if your dog freaks out in the crate, getting them to calm down, like that's probably the first step, getting 'em to stay in there willingly, right? But once they can do that, getting them to stay on place willingly would be the next thing, because there's no real wall, right? It's just, it's an invisible wall that they have to respect. It's just you telling them, I want you to stay here and then they do it, right?

20:00 — Tiebacks can help enforce the place boundary while the command is being trained.

No physical boundary, no being tied back with a leash. Although we do recommend tiebacks when you're working on the training process. Um, but it's it, there's no physical management, right? We're not managing the dog. We're training the dog. They have to choose to stay there.

And if they don't, there is a negative consequence. And I'm gonna add my little side note here, guys. Like I always do, you gotta go through the training process, right? So if you don't know how to do that, you gotta figure that piece out first. Um, your dog. You can't punish your dog for non-compliance for something that they don't understand. Um, however, I will say a lot of people go through the training process, um, even go home from, you know, private lessons or bored and trained and sometimes are cutting their dogs way too much slack.

Um, 'cause the dog is trained and they do know it. And we just tell ourselves the dog is confused or doesn't understand, and we're not supplying, uh, a negative consequence or not a meaningful enough negative consequence, right? And that is the piece everyone's missing. And let me tell you, if you have a dog with resource guarding tendencies in there and your relationship with them is completely void of negative consequences, there is no reason not to bite you over a resource.

None, because you're just not a relevant entity. You put up with the bullshit. You're a doormat and a PE dispenser. And I'm not saying your dog is a bad dog. You're 'cause they're not, right? This is normal dog stuff. But you are setting up a dynamic where you don't provide meaningful feedback. You are only there to give, give, give and nothing else. You don't have requirements. You don't have standards because you can't without negative consequences. They're all just requests, they're all questions, they're all asks, right? There are no standards there, there are no expectations. And so if you develop and build a relationship like that with your dog, you will see the worst version of them at some point, even if it's not now.

Right? And that might not be that bad for some dogs. It's not. Some dogs can be raised and spoiled and never see a negative consequence and still never bite anybody, right?

But lots of dogs do because that's normal. And so if you're start, especially if you're starting out with a new dog, it's like, don't excuse me. Don't set yourself up for that pitfall, right? It's way easier to develop a relationship of respect and trust now, rather than to try to implement it later after your dog's already learned that you're a doormat, that they can just treat you like a sibling, like another dog. Uh, much rather you built that relationship from the start. And one of the biggest ways that you do that is through the use of structure with your kennel, with your place command, um, and having real expectations and consequences around that.

Meaning if I tell you to go into the kennel, you go while you're in there, you're quiet. You don't come out until I tell you, which means if I open the door, you don't bolt out when I open the door, you wait until I invite you out, right? If I tell you to go to place, you go. And you don't come off until I tell you it's okay to come off, which might be 10 minutes from now, it might be three hours from now. And yes, your dog should stay there for three hours without a single mistake.

24:00 — A properly trained dog should remain on place for hours without leaving or making…

But they won't do that if you don't implement the rules. If you don't teach them that, if you don't prove to them, if they don't believe that there's an actual consequence for breaking that command, then of course they just will. That's normal. Love the podcast. Well, I have great news. We are now offering an inexpensive subscription where you can get access to our new premium content. This content isn't available to our general listeners, it's made just for you. It includes all kinds of behind the scenes stuff, all the obstacles and how we're overcoming them with our board and trained dogs.

And the most difficult part of our job, how we deal with overcoming obstacles with our clients. So all kinds of new cool, interesting stuff for you to get out of those episodes. You can jump down into the show notes and there will be a link to our support page where you can sign up and start listening right away.

Thanks for your support. Enjoy the rest of the show. Again, nothing wrong with your dog, dog, it's you. Okay? Um, but that piece is huge. And we love the place command too for another reason, which is it's just a great passive training tool for this exact purpose, right? Because we're all busy, we all have stuff to do. We don't wanna have to go spend an hour every day trying to teach our dog things and we're doing obedient stuff. It's like, yeah, that stuff's great and it, it's fun, but we don't have time to do that.

Constantly, constantly, constantly. But here's the thing, you don't need to, once your dog knows something, just hold them accountable for it. Like, that's the important thing. It doesn't matter that you're rehearsing all these commands, um, you know, half an hour a day, two hours a like, you don't have to do that anymore.

You just have to incorporate that accountability into your life and place is the easiest way to do that, guys. It does not get easier, right? During board and train, excuse me, board and train dogs live with me. They're doing long places. Usually in the evening while I do all my personal stuff, I've, or you know, I've got emails and stuff to do on the computer. I'm making dinner, I'm doing the dishes. Like all these things, they're doing a couple hours on their place caught. And I'm not sitting there staring at them 'cause I don't need to because we've had the conversations and they know they're not supposed to get off there.

I just keep an eye open while I'm running around doing my things.

And that way we're rehearsing every single day. I control space, I make decisions. You respect my authority and you follow my instructions. And you know that it's not negotiable, right? And we're hammering that in every single day. Every single day. And not in a mean way. Most dogs have no problem doing this. And they're totally relaxed. And most of them go to sleep and take a nap. And they're learning how to be calm and they're learning how to be respectful and it's wonderful. Um, and they just, they hop up there and they lay down and they go to sleep and that's it.

They don't get off until they tell 'em to, right? But just that one simple little tool utilizing that every day. It's how much sweat is that off your back to just send your dog to place and then you do your thing?

I mean, if, if you can't do that, then you might as well sign your dog over. Now <laugh>, right? Um, 'cause it's about as easy as it gets once they understand it anyway. Um, but that's why we love it, is it really helps to instill that leader, follower, dynamic, garner the respect, establish the boundaries, the rules, the consequences. And it's so easy for our customers to do, especially if they did do a board and training. The dog came to us, they know the place, command inside and out. They've done it a hundred times. They go home, they can put them on place, all they have to do is correct them if they get off, which shouldn't happen many times, right?

It might happen at first because the dog goes, oh, no, no, no, I don't do this for you. I don't do this in your house.

Like, not here. This, this is my stomping grounds. I I don't do this here. Right? So people often do have to have that conversation with their dogs, but once they do it, they're good, right? And now you get to keep your dog's mind, right? And keep them more respectful. Um, and if you have a dog in that head space where they know you have rules, they know you have boundaries, they know you have expectations, they know you actually will deliver negative consequences. You are now relevant. So the chances that that dog is going to actively resource guard from you is dramatically reduced, dramatically reduced.

29:00 — Dogs guarding couches or beds should lose access to those privileges while the underlying…

But here's some of the things I'm seeing on social media. I'm seeing don't let your dog in the bed, don't let your dog on the couch. Um, especially if you have seen resource guarding from them. Like, take the furniture privileges away. It's like, yes, I agree with that, but that doesn't fix the problem. It doesn't prevent the problem. It doesn't avoid the problem. It doesn't do any of those things because first of, of all, dogs can resource guard anything. Um, and you're really still leaving the problem and the behavior intact to be rehearsed. Um, it might just be in a different context over a different resource.

But we're not addressing the problem by just removing the privilege. And I agree, remove the, the privilege. If your dog is guarding the couch, they do not deserve to be on the couch, right? But address the problem too.

Um, which would be of course with a negative consequence, uh, but also like a, a proper correction, but also getting that relationship, right? So that's what we're talking about. And the number one way to do that is with structure. Um, this, the number two way you're gonna do that is with negative consequences, both for active garden, but also for anything else, right? Very few people are gonna tell me, oh, my dog will bite me if I get too close to their food. But there's no problems in any other context. Like, it just doesn't happen, guys.

I mean, even the really good dogs, um, that behaviorally have no real issues. Like if, if you sit there and you talk to people long enough, there's a laundry list of little things their dog does, um, that are annoying, right? So if you have a dog that's willing to bite you or threaten to bite you over space or food or toys, um, I'm sure there are other things that are happening that you should be addressing, right?

So if your dog steals socks, like you need to have a conversation with your dog that says, Hey, no, you can't do that, and you need to deliver a correction for that. Um, if your dog blows you off when you tell them to lay down, um, assuming again that they understand what it means, um, that should be a correction. If your dog likes to look out the window for things to bark at, like, that should be a correction. Uh, if they jump on people, if they get into the trash, if they counters, surf, all of these things, if when you reach for a stick, like you're outside, you wanna play with them and you reach for a stick to throw a stick or you reach for a ball, if they go for it, the moment you go for it, that's a correction, right?

So any of these little moments where your dog is being super rude, that should be a correction.

So I can come up with a million of these, A million. And so people might think, oh, she must be at home just correcting her dogs constantly. No, I'm not, I'm not at all because it, it felt that way a little while with the pug because he is not the brightest bulb on, on the tree. Um, took him a little while, <laugh>, it took me a little while to adjust to the intensity he needed. But at any rate, I'm not, because we've had the conversations and they've been meaningful conversations. I'm not nagging, uh, I'm not just poking my dog every time they do something I don't like, I'm telling them very clearly, do not do that, right?

I'm marking it with a no, I'm following up with a meaningful correction and I'm knocking those behaviors out so they don't do them any door. My my dogs don't jump on people. They don't bolt out doors, they don't grab food that I drop on the floor. They don't do any of that stuff, right? So I have a relationship with my dogs where they go, she's up there, I'm down here, and she is the provider of everything, good and bad.

Um, and there are expectations here. There's order here, order not chaos, which is most dogs. When you see the resource guarding and you see the infighting in the packs and all these things, uh, you see the reactivity, they're living in chaos now. People don't feel like they're living in chaos. They feel like they have rules, but they don't, 'cause they're not enforced in a way the dog cares about, which means they just don't exist in the dog's mind. The rules aren't real if they're not enforced. And so the dog is living in chaos. They are frantic.

34:00 — Rules become meaningful when structure, expectations, reinforcement, and necessary consequences are consistently applied.

It is bedlam, it is a free for all. It really is from the dog's perspective. So creating order through structure and through expectations, providing negative consequences when necessary.

And sure coupled with reinforcement for things that you like, right? That's great. The problem is most people are already doing that. Most people have done too much of that. Um, and people keep their dog in kindergarten just, you know, biscuit, biscuit, biscuit, biscuit. And uh, it just, it's enough already. <laugh>, let's balance things out and actually start meaning what we say and enforcing it. Um, but yeah, a lot of people ask me that. So I'll just throw in like, sure, you can, you can reinforce things you like, right? But let's dial that back a little because I'm sure you're already doing plenty of that.

Um, and let's implement things that we're not good at because that's why things suck, right? Or that's why they start to suck. It's 'cause we're not doing that, right? Dogs don't start resource guarding because they're not getting enough biscuits. They don't start resource guarding because you didn't give them enough cookies when they weren't resource guarding. Like that's not, that's not what's happening. It's quite frankly the opposite. They've gotten too many cookies for too many things they shouldn't have, and there's never been a negative consequence for anything in their life. And so why would I not just fly off the handle and use my teeth whenever I feel like, and I'm a dog, right?

Um, so structure, expectations, consequences, um, what else? So I, I see also a lot of posts about, nevermind the posts. I I mean, almost everybody I talk to says, oh yeah, I put my hand in his bowl all the time. And every time I hear that, I just wanna go, oh my God. So here's the thing, is it terrible? No, not necessarily. Um, but I really don't think there's a lot of benefit to it. I think all you're really doing, even if you're puppy or your dog is okay with it, all you're really doing is you're just annoying the hell outta your dog.

And how is that actually beneficial? Like what kind of change does that really create or what does that really prevent? And the answer is nothing. It doesn't, um, I feel like best case scenario, yeah, your dog is getting used to you doing that, which I guess could be somewhat beneficial.

Um, but the fact is, it's not gonna change their DNA, it's not gonna change the behaviors that are wired in there. And it, I don't feel it makes them any less likely to resource guard later as they go through maturity. And all these behaviors start to come to the surface. Uh, which is what usually happens by the way. Dogs get to be 6, 8, 12 months of age. Um, certainly 12 to 18 we're really kicking things into high gear. And that's when we start to see the stuff. And then we try to look for something that caused it.

What did we do wrong? What happened to the dog? What did they experience? And it's none of those things. Your dog's just growing up <laugh> and that's what happens, right? And then we see the stuff. Uh, but so you sticking your hand in the bowl over and over again when they're a puppy, honestly, it, I think with some dogs maybe it helps a little, but I think with some dogs, it may even make it worse because what you're doing is you're setting up a pattern where I feed you and then I annoy you, I feed you, and then I annoy you, I feed you, and then I annoy you.

38:00 — For some dogs, repeated bowl interference may increase tension rather than reduce guarding.

If you see me coming, it means I'm gonna stick my hand in your bowl and annoy you. Um, so think about it from the perspective. If you do have, have a dog that has a strong proclivity toward guarding, right? And you're just not seeing it yet because they're too young or something of that nature, then as your dog gets older and moves into maturity, they're almost more likely to exhibit it because you've set up this pattern of annoying them, right? So it's all sort of speculation, right? There's no way to really sort all of this out one way or the other and know for sure.

Um, but that would make sense to me.

So another protocol that I've heard of, um, and that I've, you know, thought about a lot is the approach the bowl and give the dog something high value. This one I actually kind of like, excuse me, struggling here. Um, this one, I, I kind of like, I wouldn't do it a ton, but I don't think it hurts to set up an association of person approaches the food bowl. They throw a piece of bacon or cheese or chicken at me and they leave. I think there could be some value there. I don't think that by itself is good enough, right?

Hopefully I've already made that clear, um, about, you know, building the relationship, using the structure, using the negative consequences for things. But I also don't think it hurts, especially if you have a puppy to set up that pattern. Someone comes up to the bowl, you look up at them, they chuck a piece of cheese at you and they move away, right?

They don't annoy you, they don't take your food away, they're not doing any of that stuff. Person approaches turns out to be a good thing. Person approaches turns out to be a good thing. Person approaches turns out to be a good thing. That might not be a bad pattern to set up. Um, and I could get behind doing some patterning like that with your puppy. Um, but I think it's important to understand that doesn't mean they won't guard later. That absolutely does not guarantee you you're gonna avoid resource guarding. Chances are if you have a dog with a proclivity toward resource guarding, they're just going to do it and you are going to have to address it when it happens.

Um, unless you know, you've set up a relationship where they just know that shit won't fly, right, then you're less likely to see it.

That's the thing that really makes you less likely to see it. Um, but for fuck's sake, leave your dog alone when they're eating for the most part, okay? If you wanna do a little bit of that patterning with the high value stuff, by the way, that's for a dog that doesn't have resource guarding issues, um, yet, right? That's not a protocol to fix resource guarding. Um, yeah, although I'm not gonna say there's never a place for it in that sense, either after relationship building, after punishment, there could be some counter conditioning there, right? But we're not gonna get into that.

Um, leave your dog alone when they're eating. If I had a dime for every time I heard, oh, we always stick our hand in the food bowl. I just, why? There's no good to come of that. There really just isn't. And it's just annoying. Like, let your dog eat their meal. You don't have to stick your hand in the bowl. You don't have to take their food away. You don't have to pet them in love on them while they're eating. And you know, kind of, it, I think it stems from too, like we just expect our dogs to be teddy bears, to be stuffed animals and they're just not.

42:00 — Owners should generally leave dogs alone while they eat instead of taking food or…

They are dogs. They are animals. They're carnivores, they're predators. And I don't care how little and cute and fluffy your dog is, they're not a teddy bear. And they deserve better than that. Honor the dog. Respect the dog. Let the dog eat their fucking meal in peace.

So my preference, in case you care <laugh>, is to feed dogs in their crates. People are so resistant to this. Of course, people are resistant to crates anyway. It's like, make the crate great again. People bring it back. Make it part of your life and part of your household. Your dog will thank you. They can go in there when you're sleeping. They can go in there when you leave. They can even go in there for periods of time during the day, whether they go in there on their own or you tell them to go in there as part of your structure.

But it's also where our dogs get all of their food and water is in their crate.

I especially recommend this in households where you have a lot of folks living, especially if there are kids, especially if there are multiple dogs or even just other small animals, cats and things like that. Just feed your dog in their crate. And I'm not saying do that as a way of avoiding the problem or managing the problem if you have a problem. It's just where we feed all of our dogs. It is the safest place to feed a dog. There's low tension, there's low conflict, there's low risk of no risk really, of anybody getting hurt, of something going sideways, of something unexpected happening.

Like even if you've never had a problem with resource guarding, as we discussed at the beginning of this episode, things change, things happen. Behavior moves.

Why, why does your dog need to be eating in the middle of the kitchen with people walking around him? Why, why, why, why? Just feed him in his crate. And also that will add to the positivity of the crate, right? Because your dog's in there. That's where his meals come, uh, which makes it even a nicer place to be, right? We keep our water in there and our dogs will go in and get a drink when they're free roaming. Um, and that's where they get their meals, right? And they can, I have two dogs. They can both eat their meals in peace and they know no one's gonna bother them.

But at the same time, there's people milling around, there's animals milling around other dogs. My training dogs might be out and about and moving by the crate. So they kind of get used to having other people and animals in close proximity, walking by them, looking at them, all these things. But yet there's no conflict.

That's a beneficial thing to rehearse, right? But it's, it's good for your dog to just be able to eat and everyone leaves them alone and there's no conflict and there's no threat and there's certainly no injuries. And it's low stress for the human too, right? And then you don't have to police things. If you've got one dog that generally tries to go over and take from the other dog, or, you know, if you've got one dog that's obese and he goes and he cleans up after the other one, all of that is resolved with you eat and your crate.

46:00 — Crate feeding prevents dogs from stealing meals and reduces the need for owners to…

And we don't like leaving food around for grazing. If you have a dog that grazes, um, that's a big no-no. Particularly for resource garters. I mean, we don't like it ever for any dog. Um, it tends to devalue the food in a sense because it's just always available, always available.

So a lot of dogs, like they don't just eat when you give them food, right? Because it's just always there and they kind of graze. But dogs yet, even though it's devalued, tend to eat a little more than they need. So they tend to get overweight. Um, and it does increase the risk of resource guarding developing because that resource of food is a high value resource, right? Even if you feel like your dog's not super food motivated, or he is not super food driven at the moment, it doesn't change the fact that dogs absolutely need food to survive, which makes it a high value item.

Um, it increases the risk of resource guarding developing because it's always laying around. And especially if you have a multi dog household and there's other dogs coming and eating out of that food dish, you never know if if one day the brain is gonna go, huh, he's eating my food <laugh> or I need that food, or, Hey, I'm hungry right now, right?

So it's like, we don't like that. Um, but I do see too that dogs tend to be overweight when, when they're grazing. So, um, I think it's more beneficial to feed them in their kennel, give them 15 minutes with their food. If they don't eat it, you just take it out. Um, and then you can try again for dinner. Don't try again two hours later in the afternoon. Give it to 'em for dinner. Um, once they learn like the food goes away until the next mealtime, they'll start to appreciate their meals more. They'll eat them when you give them to them, and you'll get into a better routine with more structure.

Um, yeah. So that's the way we do it.

Now that we've talked about the relationship building, um, the structure, the consequences for not doing the things you asked them to do, respecting your instruction, all these things. I do wanna just talk about briefly how to recognize signs of guarding and what to do if you see it. So it's not always super obvious. I saw some pictures on Facebook the other day, not of somebody that I know personally, but it was a client of another dog trainer who was at a friend's house and the friend told her to go ahead and have a seat next to her dog on the couch.

49:00 — A woman nearly lost an eye after sitting beside a resource-guarding dog on the…

And she did. And, uh, she nearly lost an eye. So your face was ripped open, needed stitches, big, swollen, black eye. I mean, it was a mess. It was really ugly. And this is a dog that had never bitten anybody before. So first of all, as I mentioned a minute ago, we need to start having more respect for dogs.

I'm not saying you need to walk around terrified of dogs, but you need to remember that a dog is a dog, is a dog. It is not a teddy bear. And they're all different. And if you don't know the dog, then you don't know the dog. And of course, if this case is a perfect example, the owners often don't know the dog, right? They know a version of the dog, right? They know how the dog is with them maybe, although even that can be questionable. Um, but most owners don't accurately assess their dogs behavioral abilities, like the things that their dog is capable of.

They do not. 'cause they see this golden version of their dog. They're, they're looking through rose colored lenses, um, no fault of their own or they're human, right? But they don't, they don't see it. They don't get it. And so it's up to you. Only you can advocate for yourself. And you need to be smart. Again, not terrified, but smart. I am not gonna go have a seat on the couch next to someone else's dog if I don't know that dog really well.

And if I, let's just say I was going to, I would be analyzing everything. So as I move toward the couch, I would be watching the dog's body language. Is he getting stiff? Is he staring at me? Is he staring away from me? Which can be just as bad. What are his eyes doing? Is his head low? That can indicate guarding? Are, are there any signs of a growl? Like all these things, right? And I probably wouldn't sit right next to the dog if I did sit on the couch, because where does that put you?

The dog is gonna whip around if they're a garter, right? They're gonna whip around and potentially bite you right in the face, right? Because you're getting right down there with the dog and they're up on your level.

So guarding on the couch often results in a face bite for that reason. If you see stillness when your dog has a resource, that can be enough, that could be guarding. Dogs get very still. If that looks a little unnatural, that's probably the first indicator that your dog is going into a guarding state of mind, stillness, stiffness, lowering of the head. Sometimes they'll lower their head and look up at you. Usually once you get to that point, there's growling. Sometimes they'll lower their head and stare away from you. There can be growling then too, but there might not be right?

But direct eye contact or making it a point not to make any eye contact, those can both be bad, but the stillness, the stiffness, the head lowering and the staring, whether it's at you or away from you, usually if it's away from you, it's more indicative of a dog that doesn't want conflict, but they're still telling you they'll do it. They'll stand their ground. Whereas if you have a dog that's making eye contact with you, they're a little more saying, let's go. I'm ready. Right? But they're both bite wrists. And then growling is obvious. I think snapping is obvious.

Snarling is obvious, right? If they're showing their teeth, um, eyes getting real big. Oftentimes this is called whale eye because you can see the whites around the edges of their eye. Um, I just don't like the term, I think it's stupid, but <laugh>, um, big eyes, definitely.

So some dogs, it's more obvious than others, but I think those dogs that just kind of get still and stiff, it gets missed entirely. And then people say they just snapped. They just turned and they didn't, they were telling you they were uncomfortable. And I'm not making excuses for them. I'm just saying we didn't do a good job of really knowing our dog, respecting them as a dog, like knowing what they're capable of and reading the room. There was work to be done there and we missed it. We missed it. So, but you don't have to worry as much about being an expert in body language, <laugh>, if you build the relationship with your dog, that's one of mutual respect.

I respect that you're a dog. I honor you as a dog. I understand what you're capable of and that you don't have a moral compass. Um, I want you to eat your meals in peace. I want it to be low conflict.

I'm not gonna put my hand in your food bowl. I'm not gonna rip bones outta your mouth with my hand. I'm not gonna do any of those things. But by damn it, you're gonna do everything I ask you to do and you're gonna do it when I ask you to do it. And there's gonna be a consequence if you don't. Right? So we have a mutual respect and trust for each other. We have a relationship that is set up to be, I want you to be fulfilled and happy. I want you to get exercise. I want you to get proper nutrition.

55:00 — Mutual respect, trust, structure, and accountability reduce the risk of dangerous behaviors such as…

I want you to get veterinary care. I want you to have a comfy place to sleep at night. I want, I want you to have good meals and I want you to eat them in peace and all of these things. However, I don't want you to forget I'm at the top here and I do have standards. And if you're gonna live in my household, you're going to have to comply. You're gonna have to have respect for me and all of the other humans and animals here.

And we're not gonna make exceptions in any category, right? And that's how you really build a relationship with a dog where there's very little monkey business and much lower risk of dangerous behaviors like resource guarding developing. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. If there's a topic you'd like to hear discussed, you can send that to me directly at Kati at Diamond Canine dot com via email. So I will link to that email address in the show notes. Thanks for joining us today, guys. Thanks for supporting the podcast and I look forward to the next one.