Just wonderin'....dog with guarding issues

[Noseprawn]

Hi. I have just read all your amazing advice on another thread and I have a question. This is out of interest really, not a situation relevant to my life at the moment.

I used to live with my FIL. He had a girlfriend who had a lovely dog, a big Pomeranian. He wasn't housetrained and was generally a bit neglected. I used to look after him when they went away on hollibobs every couple of months for a week or so. Now he had a particular ball that he just loved and when he took this ball into his basket he used to get EXTREMELY stroppy and growl/snarl/snap at anyone attempting to reach in to get the ball. His owner, my FIL, my husband and my SIL (also living with us) all got the same treatment. But I didn't. He was quite happy for me to take his ball from him when he was in his basket, take it out of his mouth, from under his belly etc etc, and never so much as growled. Why was I allowed to do so but others weren't?

Also, his owner rarely took him for walks and when she did she would not let him off the lead as his recall was not only non existent, he would actually run away necessitating neighbourhood-wide searches. However, I used to let him off the lead whenever I took him out and his recall was excellent - I never had one incident where he didn't return to me.

Thanks. As I say, just out of interest - my FIL and his girlfriend split up in the end!

Some dogs tend to be one person dogs - it sounds like this Pom was. They can also come to see certain people as having authority over them, whereas other people in the household don't.

I'll probably go and make this point on the other thread too, but there's a lot of unnecessary trouble being caused over guarding issues. Many people seem to think it's 'wrong' of a dog to resist having a prized object taken away, or to resent having people around when it's eating. Some people even make a point of taking the food bowl or item away (in the mistaken belief that this will teach the dog not to guard) but of course it has the opposite effect - the dog becomes incresingly worried that, if people are near, its food will be taken, and becoems even more possessive.

I've never had a guarding issue with any of my dogs (and I've owned some highly intelligent guarding breeds) but I always leave them well alone when eating and if they have a high value item I leave them to it.

Am going to copy & paste this over there, if you don't mind!

Well done, you, for looking after that dog though