How to stop your dog’s bad habit of guarding his food?

Dec 15,2023
4Min

How to stop the bad habit of dogs guarding their food?

What should I do if my dog ​​guards his food? Dog guarding his food is a bad behavior. If a dog protects food from a young age, not only will it be difficult to learn the previous "food-rejection training"; at the same time, it will develop into protecting toys, territory, etc. At that time, as a dog owner, you will have a headache ~ In this article, Let me introduce to you the training methods to stop dogs from guarding their food:

1. At the beginning, the dog will be very disgusted with the food you approach, and may even threaten the owner with his voice. So at the beginning, you can use your hands to put a little food not far from your hand in front of it, and then gradually switch to feeding it directly with your hands. This will gradually let the dog understand that you are not a threat to its food, but a giver, so that it will relax its vigilance towards you.

2. Secondly, you can often put it on your hands for feeding. Open your palms and put delicious food on your palms to feed the dog. This feeding method is very safe, the dog will lick the food and will not bite the hand. After your dog gets used to it, you can tentatively hold the food bowl in your hand and feed it to your puppy.

3. Then, you need to let the dog get used to having someone around when eating. When you feed it, put your hands on it first. While petting it, pour food into its food bowl. Don't stop petting it while it's eating. The movements should be gentle and slow, and you can talk to it, so that it trusts that you will not steal its food.

4. Don’t rush into petting, and take your time depending on how well the dog accepts it. You can start by stroking the back half of its body, and then gradually move to the head when it does not object (this process sometimes takes several days to complete).

5. Once the dog adapts to having someone around and petting it when eating, it will not issue threats. Start trying to take away the food bowl. During the whole meal, if you find that it shows signs of threat, such as starting to wrinkle its nose, making a purring sound, looking at people sideways, etc., scold it loudly and take away the food. When it calms down, praise it, pet it and say, "Very good." Then give it a food bowl. Keep doing this until it stops resisting.

Note: Training a dog to "not protect its food" requires a little patience. Don't grab its things from the beginning, as this will be more dangerous. Especially when taking away the rice bowl, you should pay attention to the dog's demeanor. If the dog shows signs of attack, stop taking away the rice bowl.

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