Dog with a bone

[daftyburd]

Trying my 11 month old puppy on the BARF diet. His breeder had him on Royal Canin puppy food and we kept him on it with no ill effects. Moving him on at 10 months to adult food was not so easy. He had the runs constantly and seemed red around the eyes and muzzle.
Finally decided to try BARF. He has been on it for a week and good solid poos and redness calmed down. However I tried him with a meaty bone on Friday night and his personality changed. He has never been food possessive before (cats and another dog in house) and he shares his toys quite happily. He was also fine with chicken wings but he growled at me when he had this bone and gave me a warning bark. I wasn't anywhere near the damn bone. Luckily my DD was not in the house.
Its going to be hard following BARF if he cant have bones. Would I be better to crate him if I give him a bone? Any advice about his would be appreciated.

mmm, tricky, I think you should crate him when your DD is around and he has a bone but you need to train him not to be possessive about it.

I seem to remember the training goes like this:
Over time (ie not all in one go) , try him with the bone and talk to him, then try stroking him, each time moving your hand nearer the bone, then touching the bone, then taking the bone off him and giving him it back, until eventually he knows the bone is his and even if it gets taken away hes going to get it back.

We did this with our boxers and now if the cat tries to get the bone off the dog the dog gets up and walks off because a) he knows he's going to get it back and b) he knows he's not allowed to 'go' for the cat in any way.

Thanks Gemma. It was a real shock as he has a stag antler that he is happy to leave lying around. He brings it over to play tug with. Something about the glint in his eye and the growl was different when he had the bone. I knew he didn't want to play.

Don't follow the above advice if you value your fingers! Taking it away will teach him he has reason to guard it!

Usually if a dog guards food the first bit of advice is to avoid giving high value treats. Bones are one of the highest value things you can give a dog and many otherwise very relaxed dogs will guard them. Do NOT try to take the bone away.

My advice is to avoid giving bones at all and get some help to work through the food guarding from a behaviourist. They will be able to give you a protocol to follow which builds your dog's trust and teaches them that people approaching the food dish, for example, are not a threat. However, many of these dogs will never be safe around very valuable items so you may have to rethink the bones issue.

Thats the whole point poachedeggs the dog has to be trained not to be snappy with a bone.

That is how I was told by a breeder and a vet to do it with a) our previous GSD and b) a rescue boxer.

I still have all my fingers and the GSD you could take her food dish/bone away and give her back and I've explained above what my boxer is now like.

dogcare.dailypuppy.com/stop-dog-growling-over-possessions-1644.html

The usual advice for food guarding is to give them something high value without taking their food away.

Usually you'd just add that to his bowl while eating, so the association with you is that good things appear when you approach the bowl.

That's a little bit harder with bones and raw feeding, but, if you fed him bones in his crate it should be possible.

As a short term measure while you work on it - you get complete minces with bone ground up in them, so the bone ratio of his diet would still be right and you can be pickier about when you give him bones.

The issue is that for the majority of dogs it is extremely difficult to come up with a treat which they regard more highly than a bone. It would be irresponsible of me to advise someone I don't know, whose dog I don't know, to try to approach their dog while it is obviously warning them off. The OP had already explained that the dog had shown no sign off food guarding prior to being given a bone so we can probably assume that it holds bones in particularly high regard. This is a situation which demands careful handling, especially given there is a child in the home.

I am uncomfortable with situations like these receiving glib answers on forums when they can become potentially serious if incorrectly managed. The experience of the OP, her understanding of dog behaviour and motivation, and her dog's temperament and body language are not known to us.

That was directed to Gemma BTW.

OP said Any advice about his would be appreciated.

I answered by saying what we did

That was directed at poachedeggs BTW

ffs

Mince.

Lob mince at pup whilst eating bone

Call pup away from bone, give mince and lots of praise.

Also, it was his first EVER EVER bone. He might get better once he realises bones will continue to come.

The issue is that for the majority of dogs it is extremely difficult to come up with a treat which they regard more highly than a bone.

Another bone maybe? Perhaps the dog would be less possessive of the first bone if he realised there were others?

There is absolutely no need to ffs at me Gemma.

I deal with aggressive dogs on a professional basis and i have given my suggestions. I'm sorry if you disagree but I take any potential aggression seriously and so apply caveats to most advice, however well meaning it is.

Let me know when you want a hand getting off your high horse

Gemma

Trying to pick a fight isn't helping the op. Poached, at least offered an explanation as to why she personally disagreed with your suggestion. Read your posts back, you sound more interested in being snippy now, that's not fair.

Poached is a Vet no? I think, unless I got that wrong?

I thought even 'pack' dogs do not take food from each other, but again may be wrong in this regard.

Do not ever take food away from a dog.

If you want to prevent resource guarding the dog needs to know that a hand coming close will be positive not negative. So I would only approach a dog is I was adding food. However in your case I would not even recommend this unless a qualified behaviourist has assessed the situation in RL.

The old fashioned idea to remove a dogs bowl whilst eating is downright stupid and dangerous, the same with a bone.

If you do continue to feed BARF (and your dog will luuurve you for it if you do) Give the dog his bone in a crate and leave him well alone until he has finished it. The smell will remain in the crate and he may need still guard the area so this may also be a bit too much for him to start with. If this is the case encourage him from his crate with a chicken wing to get him away from the area and then clean the crate with him outside.

You may find that as bones are given freely and he is left to eat them, the need to resource guard will decrease.

However if your dog is going completely crazy then you can still give barf but with ground bones or smaller bones that are quicker to chew.

APDT with BARF experience would be a good place to start as you really do need this situation assessed in rl by a "qualified and experienced" professional. Usually this can be worked through quite easily but it is not worth putting yourself or your dog at risk

Please don't worry about your dd being in the house. He gave a good growl and I assume as you sound like a good dog owner she already knows not to go near pup and food?

My Lab still gets the growls if she has something new to eat and you approach too close before she's found somewhere "safe" to eat it. Yet if dd is (under supervision) giving her a high value treat and making her sit/down for it, she'll happily sit next to dd and scoff it without needing to guard it

Just a thought - which the experts are welcome to shoot down - but might it be less stressful if he has his bone outside rather than in the house - he'll have to leave it at some point and it won't end up down the back of the sofa

My lab will let you remove her food bowl or pat her while eating and is generally no problem around food. However, if she has a new bone and has taken it into her crate you daren't put your hand in or you would have no fingers.

It is her high value treat in her space and no-one gets to mess with it. I respect that.

I don't do BARF but when giving mine something new and v. tasty to chew, I hold it for her rather than just giving it to her to take away. I'll sit with her for a bit, turning it this way and that so she can have a good chew of it.

This is what I did with ddog1 and am doing the same with the puppy.
I can't remember where I heard to do it like this, but it works well for us.

Thank you for all the advice.
I am going to try him with a bone in his crate tomorrow and leave him to it. If it still is an issue I will try the minces with ground down bones (please can you let me know who sells them?). I would like to continue with BARF as it really agrees with his sensitive stomach.
As I said he is not a resource guarder so it was a real shock. I have a tiny kitchen so put a lot of work in when he was a pup getting him to associate me being round his food bowl as a positive thing. Normally when he is eating I am making breakfast or dinner and stepping over him. He also swaps over bowls with our old dog. Thankfully she had taken herself off to her room for the night before the bone came out.
On a positive note when the bone got less tasty and worn down he did bring it over to lie beside me. Oh and the next morning we had our first white solid poo!
We had been to basic dog training with an APDT member. Will give him an email in the morning.

I always feed bones outside but I can take anything off my dog so can't offer any practical advice.

Most barf suppliers like daf, mvm, theyloveit do minces with bone it. Or the prize choice stuff in pets at home if you don't want to order in.

[email protected] good group for advice

groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RawMeatyBones/info sorry, this may be more useful link...