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My husband and I have a puppy named Ruby, she is 6 months old, and a little boy named Keegan who is 2-1/2. Over the past week or so, Ruby has become quite aggressive with him, especially if she has a bone or one of her toys. Do you have any suggestions for us on how to deal with this? I am concerned that if we don't nip it in the butt, she will bite him. We also don't want to give her away without trying to solve this issue as we love her very much.

Pamela,

Growling over food, bone, toys is known as resource guarding. Resource guarding is probably one of the most common aggression problems that I see. It encompasses people, places and things. This means that guarding can spread to sleeping areas and owners.

When left untreated, this problem gradually becomes severe. Often owners do not notice the progression until the first bite, and they often describe a, “Jeckyl and Hyde,” personality. The dog seems to bite without reason to the human. To the dog, the reason is real. He feels there is a threat to his possessions.

In the wild, dogs guard things. In some ways, many dogs in human society are bred or trained to guard. Sometimes it is accidental. Prevention requires early intervention. In my classes, I tell every owner, “If there is any exercise you cannot afford to skip, prevention of resource guarding is that one thing.” In my experience, resource guarding is the number one reason people put down a dog, or surrender them to a shelter.

Most people miss the early warning signs. These signs include taking bones into another room. Often you will find dogs taking items under a table. That is the first warning sign. Over time the problem grows. Eventually, the dog is growling over the bed, snapping at people walking past the coffee table and sensitive to hands approaching.

For treatment, you need to convince your dog that there is no threat. One example I commonly give is this: Let's say you open your wallet, and find that $20.00 is missing. First time, you might shrug it off. Next day, you notice another $20.00 missing. So you begin watching. You keep your wallet close to you. Someone walks past your wallet and looks at it, at which point you snap, “What are you doing?” The person was innocently walking by, but that does not matter. That same tension, that same threat is present in a dog that guards possessions. To treat the problem, you need to change the dog's mind.

In your specific situation, your first step is to identify the severity of the problem. You need to have someone take a look to make an accurate diagnosis. You need to find out what distance your dog is comfortable at, and whether there is bite inhibition. At that point, you can make an educated decision. With a child in the house, you need an honest, professional assessment.

Yvette is an award winning pet writer and pet behavior columnist. She also is the author of Meeting Milo, a North American dog bite prevention program to reduce the approximately 2 million children bit by dogs annually. She is the owner of AwesomeDogs.ca and works as a behavior consultant in London, Ontario.

This column was originally featured in The Londoner
See more of Yvette... www.awesomedogs.ca
www.meetingmilo.com

Yvette has 2 dogs of her own, KIKI and KAYA. Take a look...

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