# Guarding problems



## Maxy24 (Mar 5, 2011)

Tucker has never guarded his food or toys, but has had some issues guarding stolen objects or growling when you try to move him. Today he was getting into the trash and my brother went up to pick up the garbage and tried pulling him away from the trash. Tucker growled, barked, and snapped at him. He growled at me yesterday when he wouldn't come in from the porch after he'd gotten into the trash out there and I picked him up to bring him in. I was wondering how you would go about teaching him not to become aggressive when he's touched and has a stolen object/is in the process of stealing an object. I feel like it's not possible unless you then let them have the stolen object, which isn't exactly safe and I don't want his stealing behavior to get any stronger.


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## Liz (Sep 27, 2010)

Well of course better management of the trash - better lids, stronger cans woudl be a start. I usually offer a trade for whatever contraband my little criminal has and that works best. Plus once he has good stuuf from me he is often more than willing to exchange trash for goodies. I do make him work a little for a second goodie at the same time so he doesn't pick up the habit of finding junk and trading up. I have collies and shelties andd they are always two or three steps ahead of people in their thought process it seems. If that fails I would try walkign into the area and in essence backing him off by taking over the space. I would not suggest you try that though if you are at ll worried or fearful as the dog will sense that and respond aggressively. Tobreak the trash digging habit we have used many different approaches such as sprinkling pepper in the can so that is what he getsa noseful of when he starts rooting arround and putting soda cans with a few rock in the on top of the can so when they try to remove the lid they come craashing down around them. Anyway, those are a few things that have worked for us. Hoep it helps


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## Scarlett_O' (May 19, 2011)

IMO, rather then moving him away get him to go away.

When my boys get into something I NEVER physically remove them, I use either "Leave it/Come" if Im leaving with them or "Leave it/out" if they need to go out of the room/area without me. Those commands, IMO, are VERY detrimental to a dogs health and are ones that mine MUST obey no matter what!

Most of the time, if it is just a funny thing, and now that they know the commands they get a treat or a highly prized toy when they leave the room...but some times its only me home and they need to just sit at the threshold of the room/area until I tell them to come back in or until I come out!


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## Maxy24 (Mar 5, 2011)

The trash thing is very rare, the trash is in a cabinet but when it gets full it gets put in a big trash bag which is normally on the porch (and the door to that is normally closed). But since it was dinner time dad just left the bag in the kitchen so we could empty our plates into it instead of filling up the trash in the cabinet again. But he has a serious items stealing problem (steals everything) and I've started using a squirt bottle to deal with that which is working pretty well. So while the trash is a rarity, I think this guarding is going to be applied to other stolen objects, as it has in the past to very high value things (cat toys in particular). This morning he had a cat toy and I went in the room he was in, he took off. I tossed a bunch of kibble on the floor and left the room. He went in when I left and started eating the food so he had dropped the toy and I picked it up and put it away. It was wonderful because it was non-confrontational, I wasn't trying to get him to drop it, he just found a bunch of food on the floor and wanted to eat it so he put the toy down. So I'll try to handle things like that. But he might figure out that when he eats the food he looses his object and it won't work anymore.

I think in the future body blocking him away might be good for the trash, though he might do a grab and run. He will ignore commands (no treat is as good as a bag of trash) if he's got something really good. He knows if he takes the treat he looses his item, and a treat or two is not as good as the many minutes of entertainment offered by a stolen object. I used to pick him up when he had an object and just wait him out, that way I wouldn't be prying it out of his mouth which would make him growl but he also wouldn't be able to chew and enjoy the item because I was holding him. But now I think it's caused an issue being picked up when he's doing things we don't like.


Even if I do find good ways to get him to drop objects, I still wish I could make him okay when being handled while he has stolen objects just to prevent a bite someday. He might have something super dangerous and we needs to grab him, I'd like not to get mauled.


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