# Opinion needed....



## cbull (Feb 14, 2011)

I have a bulldog that is 4 months old. She's really a sweet dog. Last week and today, I noticed a possible issue though. Last week I gave her a knuckle to chew on (took it away after reading about possible teeth fractures). Anyway, when I went to take it away she growled at me. Not an "I'm going to kill you growl.", but I higher pitched, desperate to hold on to this new and tasty bone growl. I went ahead and grabbed the bone from her mouth and she didn't do anything. I sat the bone down in front of her and told her to stay (like I do before she eats dinner) and let her have it again. I waited a few minutes and rubbed her head and she did a faint growl. Same thing as before, I grabbed the bone from her mouth and she did nothing.

Today, I gave her a bully stick during my lunch break. After about 30 min I told her to "Leave it" which she normally does. She didn't listen. So, I got down on one knee and reached for it. She did the desperate high pitched growl again. I grabbed the bully stick and she did nothing to me. I sat it on the floor right in front of her and told her to leave it. She didn't touch it. Here's the weird thing. She has an antler that she likes and a tire that she likes to chew on. When she is chewing on those I can pet her, flip her over while she chews it, or tell her to leave it and there are no issues. Could it be that she's becoming "meat aggressive"? She only does this with food tasting items. Actually, with her dog food I can pet her and put my hand in the bowl (even though she eats her food in 30 seconds or less. LOL)

Any help is appreciated.


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## nortknee (May 5, 2011)

Well, she's a bulldog. So it's natural for her to want to argue...which is the sound you're hearing. The high pitched squeel would be the same thing as a teenager whining about having to get off the phone. They'll do it, but they aren't happy about it.

On top of that, she's 4 months old. This is the age where they really start testing boundaries, seeing what you'll put up with, and ignoring your requests. Again, she's a bulldog. It's innate in her to argue and be feisty.  Just stay consistent and positive and this will all blow over in a few months. 

I don't think you need to worry about "aggression" at this point. Until she's SNAPPING at you or baring teeth it has nothing to with aggression. Food dominance, possibly, but I have a feeling it's more just about testing boundaries. Make sure she knows that you're the one who provides the food. Victoria Stillwell does a great "how-to" video on YouTube somewhere to show that human is the provider of the food, and human can take it away whenever he or she pleases.


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## bernadettelevis (Feb 2, 2011)

I would also try do trade things! Like trade the bone for a bully stick! That way she sees that you don't want to taake it away but she gets something better instead!


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## SerenityFL (Sep 28, 2010)

I agree that it's testing boundaries. The dog I had before this, Pandora, would be very good at her food bowl but you give her a pig ear to chew on? Wooh, that girl would growl at you. She didn't want to kill you but she sure didn't want you to take her pig ear away and she was gonna let you know about it. And she was at that age where they start being pains in the behind because they are, as mentioned above, testing the boundaries. 

But, they still need to learn, not acceptable. So working on trading, that could help.


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## Tobi (Mar 18, 2011)

I've had many bullies, and this is something you have to work with early, how we work with it is simply being in their faces, holding it for them, removing it after about 15 minutes of chewing and giving it back later on repeating these processes will help.


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## lily (May 16, 2011)

shes a bully they love to challenge you,tell her to shut up and just take the item,i have an 11 month old bully and shes stubborn,at times ignorant,nosey,rude and at times very sulky!!!,you have to mean what you say ans say what you mean with a bully otherwise they run rings around you lol,karen


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## cbull (Feb 14, 2011)

Thanks for the feedback. I just finished working with her again. She grabbed the bully stick (after I gave her permission) and tried to run with it. I gave her 10 min with it. I went to take it and she growled. She tried to stuff the whole thing in her mouth and growled more. I opened her mouth with my hands and took it out. She didn't snap at me or anything. I think I'll avoid products like these in the future to be safe.


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## mischiefgrrl (Oct 28, 2010)

I don't understand taking food out of a dog's mouth, especially since my dogs get in trouble for taking food from each other, the cats or me. If someone grabbed an ice cream cone out of my hands and mouth I would punch them.


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## Mollygirl (May 14, 2011)

I just started with raw meat and I have 3 dogs, 2 are puppies. My dachshund, Pinky, takes her chicken and runs off to her corner. She will eat until she is done then she carries this bone around with her where ever she goes and growls her head off if any of the other dogs come near her. It's like she is telling them this is mine and I'm saving it for later. She doesn't do it to me and I can take it away without any problems but she will do it if my son tries to take it. I won't let her get away with doing it to my son so I hold her while he picks up the bone to show her that she can't act that way and we put it up for awhile then give it back to her later.


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## Tobi (Mar 18, 2011)

mischiefgrrl said:


> I don't understand taking food out of a dog's mouth, especially since my dogs get in trouble for taking food from each other, the cats or me. If someone grabbed an ice cream cone out of my hands and mouth I would punch them.


 What if the dog got a hold of something that was potentially fatal? would you want your fingers snapped at for trying to save its life or would you want the dog to drop it when you told it to without incident? I don't want my dog eating something they don't have permission to eat period whether it's food, a stick, garbage whatever. If my dog won't give it up willingly i'll open his mouth and i shouldn't have to worry about losing fingers for it.


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## mischiefgrrl (Oct 28, 2010)

I was trying to be somewhat comical... but when Tanis picks things up from the ground on our walks I say "Drop it!" and he does. He won't snap at me if I try to take something out of his mouth but I don't do that to stuff that I give him myself.


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## Savage Destiny (Mar 16, 2011)

What I don't get is the mentality of "Oh I'll never take anything from them they might be upset/not like it". Too bad! My dogs have to do stuff they don't like all the time, like getting their nails done or walking nicely on a leash. Doing things they don't like is part of being a dog. Its important to be able to get high value things away from them in case of an emergency. 

Cbull, don't stop giving her chewies, that will only make the problem worse down the road if she does get ahold of something. Start off by only letting her chew the item while you hold it. Sit on the floor and watch TV while holding her chew, she only gets it while you hold it and pet her. Once she's comfortable with that, work on taking it away and giving it back after a few seconds, so she learns that when you take it you'll probably give it back. Then you can work on walking up to her and trading something AWESOME like cream cheese for her chewie, and then giving it back again after she's had her treat. That's exactly what I did with Melon, and now he'd never dream of growling at me.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

cbull said:


> Thanks for the feedback. I just finished working with her again. She grabbed the bully stick (after I gave her permission) and tried to run with it. I gave her 10 min with it. I went to take it and she growled. She tried to stuff the whole thing in her mouth and growled more. I opened her mouth with my hands and took it out. She didn't snap at me or anything. I think I'll avoid products like these in the future to be safe.


Back during my dog training days, I saw A LOT of dogs who were turned aggressive by owners who were all paranoid and trying to prevent the very thing they created. Leave the poor dog alone. Let him enjoy his stuff without being harrassed. He will be ok if you leave him alone. Before long he will start growling everytime you approach regardless of what he or you are doing.

It's not the products that are the problem. It's the harrassment he is getting while he is enjoying these products.


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## lily (May 16, 2011)

i think if a dog is so possesive over a particular item then its best not to indulge them at all,its good practice to take things out of a dogs mouth ,as tobi said we need to be able to deal with any incident,as for the bully sticks i dont know what they are but i wouldnt give them again ,if you can manage to retrieve them and the growling doesnt bother you then fine,just remember you have to be very firm with a bully ,they may look cute and they make you feel bad when they have been told off ,but at 4 months they are very small and will manipulate at every chance lol,as a rule all the noise they make is a big bluff!!,karen


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## Savage Destiny (Mar 16, 2011)

RawFedDogs said:


> Back during my dog training days, I saw A LOT of dogs who were turned aggressive by owners who were all paranoid and trying to prevent the very thing they created. Leave the poor dog alone. Let him enjoy his stuff without being harrassed. He will be ok if you leave him alone. Before long he will start growling everytime you approach regardless of what he or you are doing.


Or, you know, you could teach the dog that its okay to give up high value items willingly, and that only good will come of being good while handled with said items instead of ignoring a budding problem.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

Savage Destiny said:


> Or, you know, you could teach the dog that its okay to give up high value items willingly, and that only good will come of being good while handled with said items instead of ignoring a budding problem.


Yes you can if you have a trainer to help you through the process but I see no need to harrass a dog while he's enjoying his meal. I know ... I've heard "what if I have to take something from him sometime?" I've been raw feeding for 9 years and never one time HAD to take anything from a dog's mouth, particularly food.

Problems like this are not something for the novice trainer to tackle by himself. Like I said earlier, I have seen A LOT of dogs who had owner induced food aggression from the owner repeatedly taking food from them "just to see if I can" or "to make sure his is not getting food aggressive" or "to get him used to my hand being around his food while he's eating". Then when the dogs growl, they panic and do all the wrong things until the problem becomes a very real problem.


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## Kofismom (Sep 14, 2010)

> Well, she's a bulldog. So it's natural for her to want to argue...which is the sound you're hearing. The high pitched squeel would be the same thing as a teenager whining about having to get off the phone. They'll do it, but they aren't happy about it.
> 
> On top of that, she's 4 months old. This is the age where they really start testing boundaries, seeing what you'll put up with, and ignoring your requests. Again, she's a bulldog. It's innate in her to argue and be feisty.  Just stay consistent and positive and this will all blow over in a few months.


That is so true! The first few months that I had Kofi, I felt like a human chew toy. It was quite a learning experience to learn how to deal with my stubborn little girl.


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## cbull (Feb 14, 2011)

RawFedDog, I don't harrass her when I give her things to chew on. It was just something I noticed. But, there will be times when I give her things and she has to give it up for whatever reason (ex. I need to head to work, etc.) Majority of the time I just let her have it and go enjoy my quiet time after work. This was just a potential issue I wanted to address.

As for me reaching in her mouth. There was a small chunk left and she kept choking on it because I stood up and grabbed my keys and she knows that means I'm about to leave. So, she tried to swallow it. I'm not about to watch her choke. So, when she spit it up in her mouth I grabbed it. No growl...nothing. I told her good girl and went back to work.


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## Savage Destiny (Mar 16, 2011)

RawFedDogs said:


> Yes you can if you have a trainer to help you through the process but I see no need to harrass a dog while he's enjoying his meal. I know ... I've heard "what if I have to take something from him sometime?" I've been raw feeding for 9 years and never one time HAD to take anything from a dog's mouth, particularly food.
> 
> Problems like this are not something for the novice trainer to tackle by himself. Like I said earlier, I have seen A LOT of dogs who had owner induced food aggression from the owner repeatedly taking food from them "just to see if I can" or "to make sure his is not getting food aggressive" or "to get him used to my hand being around his food while he's eating". Then when the dogs growl, they panic and do all the wrong things until the problem becomes a very real problem.


A person doesn't need a trainer to teach a PUPPY its ok to be handled while chewing. Puppies test boundaries, and all they need is to be shown what's okay and what's not. I didn't need a trainer's help to teach Melon not to growl over chews, all it took was patience. 

Also, your personal experiences are not the be-all end-all of the dog world, believe it or not. Just because you've never had a problem doesn't mean you never will, nor that other people haven't or won't. When Riddle was a pup, I had to rip a chicken drumstick out of her mouth because she was trying to swallow the whole end piece and was about to choke. I'm lucky she's never been possessive, since I'd not had her that long, but I still got a finger chewed because she panicked and tried to chomp it faster to keep me from getting it.


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## Caty M (Aug 13, 2010)

RFD, It's not just food either.. there have been dog poisonings near where I live and if I see something that should not be in my dog's mouth he should listen and drop it, and not try and bite and growl at me if I have to take it away. I'm not saying harass the dog by any means but there are several situations I can think of where it's a necessity that a dog not have food/toy/possession issues. What if you had a friend over who had a baby that happened to reach out and grab something the dog had?.. ALL dogs should be trained to not react.


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## cbull (Feb 14, 2011)

Update: I got rid of the bully stick. She was pretty much done with it and the odor was bad. LOL. I had a rib for her that I hadn't given to her yet. So, I let her chew on that. As a poster suggested, I held on to it while she chewed it and petted her at the same time. No reaction. She just kept chewing (which is good). After 5 min of doing this I let her have it and she walked away with it (a few feet from me) and kept chewing on it. I let her chew on it till it was time for me to head back to work (roughly 20 min). I approached her and before I could say anything she spit the bone out and just sat there. As to say "This is your bone. Take it." Caught me by suprise. I picked it up. 2 min later I gave it back to her to try it again. I let her chew it for 5 min. I came back to her and she kept chewing. I told her to "Leave it" and she let it go again. I yelled good girl and and gave her a treat! 

Sounds like the majority was right. Not aggression, just a pup who was pouting and seeing what she could get away with.


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## meggels (May 30, 2010)

cbull said:


> Update: I got rid of the bully stick. She was pretty much done with it and the odor was bad. LOL. I had a rib for her that I hadn't given to her yet. So, I let her chew on that. As a poster suggested, I held on to it while she chewed it and petted her at the same time. No reaction. She just kept chewing (which is good). After 5 min of doing this I let her have it and she walked away with it (a few feet from me) and kept chewing on it. I let her chew on it till it was time for me to head back to work (roughly 20 min). I approached her and before I could say anything she spit the bone out and just sat there. As to say "This is your bone. Take it." Caught me by suprise. I picked it up. 2 min later I gave it back to her to try it again. I let her chew it for 5 min. I came back to her and she kept chewing. I told her to "Leave it" and she let it go again. I yelled good girl and and gave her a treat!
> 
> Sounds like the majority was right. Not aggression, just a pup who was pouting and seeing what she could get away with.


Nice job


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

Savage Destiny said:


> A person doesn't need a trainer to teach a PUPPY its ok to be handled while chewing. Puppies test boundaries, and all they need is to be shown what's okay and what's not. I didn't need a trainer's help to teach Melon not to growl over chews, all it took was patience.


In my 15 years as a professional dog trainer, I made a lot of money from people who tried to teach that and made it worse instead. It all depends on the ability of the owner. 



> Also, your personal experiences are not the be-all end-all of the dog world, believe it or not. Just because you've never had a problem doesn't mean you never will, nor that other people haven't or won't.


Actually it is. I have worked with well over 1,000 dogs in my life. Some were good dogs, some were problem dogs. I learned to determine why the good dogs were good and why the bad dogs were bad. I speak from a lot of experience when I talk about dogs.



> When Riddle was a pup, I had to rip a chicken drumstick out of her mouth because she was trying to swallow the whole end piece and was about to choke. I'm lucky she's never been possessive, since I'd not had her that long, but I still got a finger chewed because she panicked and tried to chomp it faster to keep me from getting it.


I don't care how possessive a dog is, when he is choking on something, he definately will not hinder the person trying to save his life. If your dog was trying to keep you from getting the drumstick, she was not choking.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

bishopthesheltie said:


> RFD, It's not just food either.. there have been dog poisonings near where I live and if I see something that should not be in my dog's mouth he should listen and drop it, and not try and bite and growl at me if I have to take it away.


If you haven't been harrassing the dog in the past, when you need to get something it will be no problem if you have a solid relationship with the dog. By harrassing, I mean testing to see if you can. You will be able to if you need to.


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## Maxy24 (Mar 5, 2011)

I'm glad things are going better, just wanted to add my opinion. My dog started doing the same sort of thing when he was 4-5 months old. The best thing you can do is teach him that you have in interest in stealing his things. So make sure you go near him while he's chewing and DON'T take his things way more than you DO take his things. You might approach, hand him a treat or two, give a pat and walk away. You might approach, sit beside him for a few seconds, get up and walk away. Or walk up, toss treats on the floor, while he eats them pick up his chewy then give it back as he finishes the last treat. Do a lot of simply walking up and giving him a couple of treats, then walking away. You want him to stop getting nervous when you approach him and his chew. Later, once he's become accustomed to you approaching and being non-threatening or even downright awesome, you don't have to offer the treat upfront anymore. You can pet him a few times, then give him some treats. Or move on to making contact with the chewy and giving a few treats.

On the side, while doing the above things, train him a proper drop it command. Start with a toy and move on to high value things like chewies or popular stolen items (we did this with my dog and pens, tissues, and socks as he loves these). Once he becomes good at following the drop it you can start using that in the resource guarding fixing/prevention. Approach, ask for a drop it, when he drops it take some treats out of your pocket and reward him, then let him get back to his chewy. Later ask for a drop-it, give some treats, pick the chewy up, give more treats, hand the toy back to him. 

In the cases where you do have to actually take it and not give it back make sure you still reward him and, if possible, hand him something he can keep like a toy or stuffed kong or distract him by playing with him for a few minutes after you take it so he can move on, not dwell on loosing the object, and be made happy again.


Make sure not to take the object as punishment for growling. Growling is not a bad thing, it is a way to keep the peace, a dog who growls is giving you adequate warning that you are bothering him and he would like you to stop. If he can't growl you won't know he is upset until he snaps, if you punish that you won't know he's upset until he bites you, and surely you don't want that. IMO a growling dog is WAY safer than a dog who keeps quiet to avoid getting in trouble.


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## Savage Destiny (Mar 16, 2011)

RawFedDogs said:


> In my 15 years as a professional dog trainer, I made a lot of money from people who tried to teach that and made it worse instead. It all depends on the ability of the owner.


Well, I guess you didn't deal with many dog savvy people then.



> Actually it is. I have worked with well over 1,000 dogs in my life. Some were good dogs, some were problem dogs. I learned to determine why the good dogs were good and why the bad dogs were bad. I speak from a lot of experience when I talk about dogs.


You're killing me here! Seriously, your ego apparently needs some deflating- no, you really are not the god of dogs, your experiences are not in fact the only ones that count. Holy crap. I've worked with at least a thousand dogs in my time- I speak from experience as well. Just because something did or did not happen to you does not mean that anyone else's experiences are invalid, nor that you don't have more to learn. We ALL have more to learn, we will ALWAYS have more to learn. Nobody knows absolutely everything there is to know. Not you, not me, not anyone else. 



> I don't care how possessive a dog is, when he is choking on something, he definately will not hinder the person trying to save his life. If your dog was trying to keep you from getting the drumstick, she was not choking.


Which is why I said (if you had actually read my post, which you don't seem good at doing) that Riddle was ABOUT to choke. I saw a problem and prevented it from happening.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

Savage Destiny said:


> Well, I guess you didn't deal with many dog savvy people then.


Most of them weren't. That's why they paid me big bucks to help them with their dog's problems.



> You're killing me here! Seriously, your ego apparently needs some deflating- no, you really are not the god of dogs, your experiences are not in fact the only ones that count. Holy crap. I've worked with at least a thousand dogs in my time- I speak from experience as well.


Just exactly what is your problem? I don't have a clue where you are coming from. To be perfectly honest, I don't beleive you are smart enough to deflate my ego. You have been beating around the bush so long, I have forgotten exactly what we are disagreeing about and I don't really care enough to scroll back and see.



> Just because something did or did not happen to you does not mean that anyone else's experiences are invalid, nor that you don't have more to learn.


Where did I say that? If we are going to discuss something, we need to discuss it instead of trading insults. I can trade insults with the best of them and you will have a difficult time beating me there but I really don't care to get into that right now.



> Which is why I said (if you had actually read my post, which you don't seem good at doing) that Riddle was ABOUT to choke. I saw a problem and prevented it from happening.


I have heard so many times, "My dog is attacking my children", "My dog is doing things just to spite me", "My dog is aggressive around other dogs", "My dog cannot be house trained", AND "My dog was about to choke". None of those ended up being factual. I strongly suspect you dog would have been ok if you had just given him a chance to take care of it himself. I know that sometimes it looks scary when things don't go down the way we think they should but dogs manage to take care of it if we don't panic. They have a great ability that we don't have of moving items in both directions in their throat. In 10 years of reading posts on many raw feeding discussion boards and reading well over 100,000 posts, maybe twice that many, I have read of only one dog choking to death on a piece of food. Once again, if your dog was trying to keep you from getting the drumstick, he wasn't choking. I don't know what made you think he was ABOUT to. I've seen my dogs swallow chicken quarters whole and a few times after they swallowed, they didn't make it down and they had to bring it back and chew it some more. I've seen this happen many times. It's not all that unusual.


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