Food Aggression - Ruby advise!

Hi everyone!

Most of you know the backstory of my issues with Ruby and her controlling nature! As you may remember, she went after/bit Sean (my son) a few months ago as well over me. So we've gone into hyper overdrive - she doesn't get to go on couches, beds, anything anymore.

Well, since she had started to get too hyper regarding serving of food - we always make her "sit" and wait for us to get her food in the other room. We always make her hold (not start munching) until we say "release". That works, but she started jumping around, hardly sitting still and just getting way worked up over it. So now I make her lay down on command "Down" and go thru the same routine, not getting to get up from that until I say "release" once food bowl in front of her. Sean has also started doing the feeding about 1/2 of the time.

Lately, she has started to exhibit food aggression over her bowl - with Sean (he can't go near her, she will bite) and even with me. She "lunged" at me a bit the other day, which was a shock. I have been making her go back into "sit" position or "down" mid-meal and she does that fine. I try to take her bowl and she gets EXTREMELY agitated, but does not bite me. However, I am not convinced that she wouldn't - she is so on the verge of it!

Any ideas on how we should work on this aggression? My guess is she has "amped up" because she has lost some of the other control she had over us (on the bed, with meals, etc.)

Thanks all!!!

No advice here... but, I can't believe you can get her to not only stay in another room waiting for her food, but then to sit and wait until you say release!

My pugs must be the most misbehaved bunch ever, because they bark, whine, circle, run around, scratch my legs waiting for me to put their food down.

Is she still not allowed on the couch or bed? Is this your permanent solution, or do you plan to reintroduce privileges?

I have zero training experience, so I have nothing to offer, sorry. Hopefully, some of the awesome trainer people on here will pipe in.

Karen/Pugasaurus is your go-to guy for training. Maybe PM her? You sound like you're doing a damn good job so far though, she's a tough nut to crack.

Renee wrote:No advice here... but, I can't believe you can get her to not only stay in another room waiting for her food, but then to sit and wait until you say release!

My pugs must be the most misbehaved bunch ever, because they bark, whine, circle, run around, scratch my legs waiting for me to put their food down.

Is she still not allowed on the couch or bed? Is this your permanent solution, or do you plan to reintroduce privileges?

I have zero training experience, so I have nothing to offer, sorry. Hopefully, some of the awesome trainer people on here will pipe in.

Ruby is super controlling, but very smart! She learns "tricks" within minutes I swear. We taught her "down" within 5 minutes. Training her to stay in position when we get food in another room didn't take more than a day or two. She can also roll over on command. She's so smart and wants to please, but she can't beat her "issues" - they control her.

We used to think she could get better and get privileges again, but we've given that up. It is so sad, but we've accepted that she'll never be allowed to do all those things again and we'll never get to enjoy a pug sleeping with us again until she's gone. We can't have another pug in the house with her - too hard. We've done it, but really really stressful.

Aussie Witch wrote:Karen/Pugasaurus is your go-to guy for training. Maybe PM her? You sound like you're doing a damn good job so far though, she's a tough nut to crack.

Thanks Rona - I'll do that later on if I don't hear from her sooner.

I'm not sure this is all that "fix-able" and is risky to try and fix with a small child around as Ruby can get in her licks if she decides she wants to. I'd feed her in a crate so that there's no risk to anyone. Teach her to stay out until the food bowl is in, then let her in, shut and lock the door behind her and leave her there until she is done eating. Call her out and then get the bowl. You know that behaviourally she has limits and issues so I'd pick this as a struggle that needs to be managed but not "cured". I don't expect my dogs to let me put my hands in their food bowls once they are eating--I think it's unreasonable to ask of a dog. BUT I do expect them to behave while dinner is being prepared and served. Once it's down, I expect all the humans to leave them alone until they are done. If I get aggression when I go to get the bowl and the bowl is empty, then that's another whole training issue.

However, I'd be interested to hear what Karen says.

Resource guarding sucks. And will always be lurking somewhere in a dog that resource guards. When she bites, how hard does she bite? Does she draw blood? Leave puncture wounds? The harder the bite, the more serious they are about their resource guarding and the harder it is to make it better. But it can be made better.

You're on the right track with a Nothing In Life Is Free program. And if she's worse around her dinner time, you might try this if you haven't tried it already. Take her food bowl up entirely and for the next few weeks she will only get hand-fed by you. If she eats kibble, feed it to her piece by piece. Once she's done that for a few weeks, you will put her bowl down and now drop the kibble in bit by bit. Do this for about a week.

Now get a really tasty treat and while you're feeding her the kibble bit by bit, drop a piece in and then take it back out. As you take the piece of food out, drop the really tasty treat in and let her eat that and then drop the kibble back in the bowl. Do this for a few weeks. Once she's comfortable with you moving your hand towards and away from her food bowl, now instead of taking away a piece of kibble, take the bowl away, give her a goodie, put the bowl back. Do this for a couple of weeks and then randomly do it a few times a week to keep this behavior on the loop.

I have one dog who is a very serious resource guarder and I taught him to trade. I started with something, a toy that he likes but doesn't love and while he has the toy in his mouth, I approach with a treat in my hand, let him smell it, he drops the toy to get a treat and after he eats the treat I give him the toy back. I named the behavior "treat" and once the dog is trading toy for treat, then instead of letting him see the treat, I just say "treat", he spits out toy, I give him his treat. Once the dog is doing it with low-value things, do it with higher value things and using really yummy treats for the trade. Practice, practice, practice! It has paid off, I've gotten ant baits, bones, and other dangerous things from Cornell using this trade.

There was a client's dog who would go after anything that fell off a counter or table and part of the reason he was so hard-core about these places is that usually good stuff worth fighting over came from these places, and the family made such a big deal about it, so for him, I started dropping icky stuff off the sides, crackers with bitter apple spray, pieces of wood, key chains and other inedible and hard to swallow items so that the thrill was gone. When the stuff fell, I just looked at the dog and went on about my business and all the thrill and drama was removed from this behavior and the dog wasn't quite so nuts.

For so many resource guarders, the hand coming close to them means they're going to lose something, but by doing the above, the dog should start to react more favorably towards an approaching hand.

As an aside, for a resource guarding guide dog in training, we would leave a big bag of food out and encourage the dog to gorge themselves on it and it worked well for the labs, they'd spend a day or two sick and would not be quite so greedy. I'm putting this one out there as a long shot because some long shot things have worked. But I think Ruby is more like my Cornell and this wouldn't slow her down...

As for Sean, I'd only think about letting him work with Ruby after she is reliable with you and she might never get to that point. Usually with kids, it's a good idea to let them wear heavy leather gloves when they work with the dog.

There's also a book called "Mine" by Jean Donaldson that goes into blow by blow details on how to work on resource guarding. And of course, a good trainer does wonders! Maybe someone on this board who lives out by you knows of a good +reinforcement trainer??

Hi Karen, thanks for taking the time to provide such a long detailed response! When she bites another dog (like when we had Curly) over food - she drew blood and went into major, major attack mode. We don't allow her to eat near any dog, ever now. When she bit Sean (that is when we starting going hard-core on the training) she left puncture but no major blood. With me, she just lunges - no biting, just her "behavior" We are super in-tune with her behavior so usually see it coming ahead of time. I can see her getting "worked up" at times when I pull her bowl or drop food.

We did try some hand feeding once, but never with this goal in mind. I love your suggestions! Not sure we can get this going during the holidays, but in January for sure! I'm going to tackle it.

The problem is, you can always "manage" the situation by being aware, but for us sometimes the hidden food is a problem. With a 6 year old, we sometimes have an opened snack bag inside other bags or his friends come over and they have a lunch box inside their backpack. Stuff like that sneaks up on you since it is not a typical feeding situation. So I am very aware of what comes into the house, backpacks go on counters, etc., but there are always mistakes. So I think we need to do our best to work on the resource guarding.

Poor Ruby (and poor us)…she is one messed up girl!

Thanks Karen!!! You are an incredible asset to Pug Authority! And thanks to everyone else! My go-to group!!!

A belated "you're welcome", there's just not enough hours in a day to keep up with all the internet stuff! I hope Ruby is doing better!