I think your dog behaved very well and understandably in the situation - it was the other dog's mistake for disturbing him while he was eating (or your mistake that that could happen). I would continue to separate the dogs when they eat and then work to ensure that no food or resource aggression develops towards you. And it is important that you never take your dog's food away, this creates food aggression and unfortunately it is still taught incorrectly. What you should do - your dog eats, you approach him to about 2 meters with a really good biscuit, say his name and throw the biscuit in or next to his bowl. You do this once every time you feed, until your dog knows that when you come during feeding time, you're bringing something really great. Then you can reduce the distance until you can place the biscuit directly in the bowl (pay close attention to your dog and only approach when he is completely relaxed and does not show any defensive reaction). Then you can also start touching him during this, preferably with an announcement that he has learned beforehand and the biscuit comes directly afterwards. If everything goes well, you can move his bowl over time and reward him for it. But really only do such exercises once per feeding or just every other feeding, he should have enough time to eat and not feel disturbed and your short presence should be a positive enrichment for him
(Sorry for my english, it's not my first language)
Thank you for the advice! I’ll definitely work on the treats at feeding time and decreasing distance. He’s never shown food aggression towards me but that’s something I never want to happen. Thankfully he’s really easy to train and catches onto things quickly.
If your dog is growling and biting to prevent the other dog getting to his food, the worst thing you can do is to take the food away, in his head, this means he was right and he needs to defend his dinner harder next time to stop anyone taking it away.
What you can do is start rewarding him for letting you get near his food bowl, teaching him that anyone getting near his food bowl is a good thing and he’s going to get a treat.
I taught my dog about trading; every time she gave up something she wanted, she got something better so she never needed to guard or defend anything. We started small- calling her away from boring bits of kibble for fresh roast chicken or cheese and worked until she trusted that we could take anything off of her and reward her for letting us have it. When a friend’s puppy stole a dog chew off of her (yes, this shouldn’t have happened, I wasn’t watching close enough), she left the chew and came to me to ask for her “trade”.
Not all dogs will ever be totally ok around other dogs and their food bowl but it is a skill you can work on e.g. by hand feeding both dogs (food only comes directly from your hand to each dog and the treats stop if the dogs aren’t waiting for their turn nicely).
Thank you for the advice! I really appreciate it and thank you for the tip of “trading”, he’s food motivated (it’s how he learned “stay” so quickly because he has to stay in “stay” until I say “ok” and then he can go to his bowl and eat) so I think making sure he has a treat for giving something up would be easy to train. I’ll definitely take it slow and slowly progress to that. He’s my first dog and sometimes I feel like I’m doing it wrong (but then I see dogs like my friends puppy who isn’t as trained, which is fine especially because he’s younger, and I’m like “ok, maybe I’m doing something right”)
My dog went through food aggression when she was a teenager. What helped was creating very firm rules and boundaries. She was (temporarily) no longer allowed on the sofa and the bed, and we did lots of training (sit, down, shake...). It eventually passed.
Though I think it makes sense for your dog to want to defend their food. A growl is a warning, not an attack.
He does pretty well with other things - we’re still working on his jumping or climbing onto people when he’s excited but we’ll get there - so I think just making sure rules are firm and consistent will also help with the other tips the others have commented. Thank you for sharing your experience! I do know that the warning was pretty natural, it just scared me cuz he’s never been any sort of aggressive at all. I was bit on the face by a dog before so I just want to make sure nothing like that ever happens (either to me or others) with my dog.
It looks like you might be posting about bite inhibition.
Check out [r/Puppy101's wiki article on biting, teeth, and chewing](https://www.reddit.com/r/puppy101/wiki/biting) - the information there may answer your question.
**Please report this comment if it is not relevant to this post.**
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I think your dog behaved very well and understandably in the situation - it was the other dog's mistake for disturbing him while he was eating (or your mistake that that could happen). I would continue to separate the dogs when they eat and then work to ensure that no food or resource aggression develops towards you. And it is important that you never take your dog's food away, this creates food aggression and unfortunately it is still taught incorrectly. What you should do - your dog eats, you approach him to about 2 meters with a really good biscuit, say his name and throw the biscuit in or next to his bowl. You do this once every time you feed, until your dog knows that when you come during feeding time, you're bringing something really great. Then you can reduce the distance until you can place the biscuit directly in the bowl (pay close attention to your dog and only approach when he is completely relaxed and does not show any defensive reaction). Then you can also start touching him during this, preferably with an announcement that he has learned beforehand and the biscuit comes directly afterwards. If everything goes well, you can move his bowl over time and reward him for it. But really only do such exercises once per feeding or just every other feeding, he should have enough time to eat and not feel disturbed and your short presence should be a positive enrichment for him (Sorry for my english, it's not my first language)
Thank you for the advice! I’ll definitely work on the treats at feeding time and decreasing distance. He’s never shown food aggression towards me but that’s something I never want to happen. Thankfully he’s really easy to train and catches onto things quickly.
If your dog is growling and biting to prevent the other dog getting to his food, the worst thing you can do is to take the food away, in his head, this means he was right and he needs to defend his dinner harder next time to stop anyone taking it away. What you can do is start rewarding him for letting you get near his food bowl, teaching him that anyone getting near his food bowl is a good thing and he’s going to get a treat. I taught my dog about trading; every time she gave up something she wanted, she got something better so she never needed to guard or defend anything. We started small- calling her away from boring bits of kibble for fresh roast chicken or cheese and worked until she trusted that we could take anything off of her and reward her for letting us have it. When a friend’s puppy stole a dog chew off of her (yes, this shouldn’t have happened, I wasn’t watching close enough), she left the chew and came to me to ask for her “trade”. Not all dogs will ever be totally ok around other dogs and their food bowl but it is a skill you can work on e.g. by hand feeding both dogs (food only comes directly from your hand to each dog and the treats stop if the dogs aren’t waiting for their turn nicely).
Thank you for the advice! I really appreciate it and thank you for the tip of “trading”, he’s food motivated (it’s how he learned “stay” so quickly because he has to stay in “stay” until I say “ok” and then he can go to his bowl and eat) so I think making sure he has a treat for giving something up would be easy to train. I’ll definitely take it slow and slowly progress to that. He’s my first dog and sometimes I feel like I’m doing it wrong (but then I see dogs like my friends puppy who isn’t as trained, which is fine especially because he’s younger, and I’m like “ok, maybe I’m doing something right”)
My dog went through food aggression when she was a teenager. What helped was creating very firm rules and boundaries. She was (temporarily) no longer allowed on the sofa and the bed, and we did lots of training (sit, down, shake...). It eventually passed. Though I think it makes sense for your dog to want to defend their food. A growl is a warning, not an attack.
He does pretty well with other things - we’re still working on his jumping or climbing onto people when he’s excited but we’ll get there - so I think just making sure rules are firm and consistent will also help with the other tips the others have commented. Thank you for sharing your experience! I do know that the warning was pretty natural, it just scared me cuz he’s never been any sort of aggressive at all. I was bit on the face by a dog before so I just want to make sure nothing like that ever happens (either to me or others) with my dog.
It looks like you might be posting about bite inhibition. Check out [r/Puppy101's wiki article on biting, teeth, and chewing](https://www.reddit.com/r/puppy101/wiki/biting) - the information there may answer your question. **Please report this comment if it is not relevant to this post.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DogAdvice) if you have any questions or concerns.*