06/12/2024
Guarding food is a natural behaviour for a dog. We guard our property etc all the time! I am sure you would not be happy if someone tried to take one of your possessions, and maybe even your food ( I have been know to hide chocolate so no one else gets it 🙂) One of the easiest things to do is to manage your dog- leave it in peace to eat.
Particularly important to remember this time of year when there may be lots of family gathering who might not be as respectful of dogs and their boundaries as they should be.
This is an amalgamation of the types of comments I see so often on social media posts, that dogs should allow anyone to take anything away from them, including small children, without reacting.
Sadly, this kind of thinking can still be all too common, usually linked to the dog ‘knowing their place’ and seeing humans in the household as ‘the alpha’. I’ve talked a number of times on this page about the issues with the alpha/pack leader/ dominance theory approach to life with dogs, and situations like these are a real problem.
Let’s start first of all with guarding behaviour. While seen as problematic by many and completely unacceptable (in any situation) by some, resource guarding is a natural behaviour. The dog has something they value – in this case, let’s stick with the bone mentioned above – and they want to keep that bone. It’s tasty, they enjoy chewing it, and so they don’t want to lose it.
When someone tries to take it away from them they show they don’t want to give it up using the only language they have, body language, and so we see the positioning themselves over the bone and the teeth showing, escalating potentially to a snarl, snap, or more depending on how far they are pushed. I can absolutely relate to this – if someone tried to take away my food, I am pretty much guaranteed to tell them to go away and leave it alone!
Resource guarding can be a tricky problem but there are easy ways to manage the situation and not make the dog feel they need to guard. When the dog is eating their meal or chewing that tasty bone, leave them alone. Feed their meals in an area where they can be left in peace, and any bowls can be collected once the dog has finished and moved away. Drop high value treats (cubes of cheese, slivers of meat or other things your dog loves) and, when they move away from the bone, then pick it up and remove it.
Children make up a massive proportion of cases of dog bites and it is in large part because of thinking like the statement in the image, ‘If a child or toddler cannot take a bone away from a dog, that dog is a problem. Dogs don’t get to have boundaries.’ It is not the dog that is the problem. It is the misunderstanding of the essential nature of the dog by those responsible for those children that is the problem.
There may well be dogs that will let kids take stuff away from them, but this should not be expected as the norm. Neither should letting kids climb all over dogs, pull at their fur, ears, lips, tail, or indeed ANY part of the dog. When those with education and understanding of canine behaviour and body language look at the ‘cute’ pics or videos of kids doing these things to dogs it fills us with horror, because we can see the signals that the dog is so often giving to say that they are not comfortable, they need to be left alone.
We’re usually accused of being killjoys or over-dramatic, but the truth is that we see the after-effects of these situations going to wrong. We are the ones who are called in to deal with the dogs labelled as aggressive, with a bite history (and there are dogs we don’t even get to see, who are immediately euthanised after a bite) and try to pick up the pieces of this dog who feels the need to defend themselves.
And yes, dogs absolutely get to have boundaries. They are sentient creatures who should not have to tolerate being poked and prodded or having their food or toys taken away by anyone, including kids.
Dogs and children can be a magical, joyful combination. It’s up to us to make sure that BOTH parties are kept safe and happy in their interactions.