Puppy aggression when we eat

[Tfutcher]

We have a five month old King Charles Caviler Spaniel. Now he is generally well behaved, can walk out the lead, has good recall etc.
However, he has always been hard work around food. This started off with his own food, becoming aggressive. Growling and lunging at us. We have been taken this off him and giving it back. Also snag CJ img food off of plates and out of hands.

however lately he has become aggressive when we are eating our own food. Just this afternoon we tried to pull him away from my son as he was bothering him when eating and he bit my husband. Any ideas of what we can do as not concerned he will be dangerous with the kids.

Not sure if this has made it worse, but in the last week we have got a kitten (had a previous cat whilst had him). They get on well.

Taking food away from a dog will increase the dog getting anxious about you approaching food.

Instead of taking food away it is recommended that you approach the dog and add food to the bowl. They will then see people approaching them as a good thing not a threat and a need to guard.

However as your dog is already reacting I would not do this just yet.

Pulling a dog will also cause them to be stressed and react eg biting.

In the short term put your dog away when you are eating. Using stair gates and door gates is a good idea for this.

Give him his own food to occupy him when you are eating eg a kong or natural chew. Do not approach him whilst he has this. In the same way you do not want him taking your food he does not want you taking his food.

you need proper help to resolve this but in the interim the dog cannot be in a room when anyone is eating
and do not take food or touch your dog when he’s eating

use a house lead if you need to so be able to move him

Unfortunately, as others have said, you have inadvertently created the problem by taking food off them - which you absolutely should never do and is pretty much guaranteed to cause resource guarding. Work with a force free professional to resolve this.

Firstly, I’d advise a trainer/behaviourist to witness the behaviour and work one to one with you and your dog. Be careful when choosing a trainer though, I wouldn’t look at anyone who uses ‘quick fix’ methods.

As others have said, you’ve created an issue with resource guarding food. Personally, the dog wouldn’t be around me or the family when eating if there was any food aggression and please stop removing food from your dog when it’s eating.

Crate him when you eat.

For now, the dog needs to be left alone while he eats (please stop taking his food off him mid-meal) and he also needs to locked away in another room whenever anyone is eating anything for everyone's safety.

Long-term, you need the help of an APBC accredited behaviourist (not trained) who can come and see you in person - nobody should be advising you about how to address resource guarding without seeing your dog in person as it has the potential to be incredibly dangerous.

When you get a puppy it's important to enforce good behaviour with food. The dog should be told to sit and wait. You put the food down tell them to wait and only eat when you give the command. When you eat dog should be put away in another room/ behind a gate/ crated.

You need professional help if it’s got this severe. In person. It just shows how dangerous outdated and indirect advice is.

In the future, when eating we had great success with mat training with food. Pup would scream and try to snatch food but needed to be with us. So we laid a bit of vet bed on the floor by the table and tossed treats on while we were eating. Fast forward a few months and she now zooms to her mat when there is food on the way from the kitchen and stays there with the very occasional treat. She now relaxes until we’ve finished. No force. No removing anything.

Dogs need to eat in peace. Who advises taking food away from a dog ffs. Makes me really cross.

I can only advise from the kitten part but please make sure you feed the kitten completely away from the dog. Cats should always have safe feeding spaces that the dog can never access. What happens is that the dog already has the house as its territory, so a new cat is in its territory now, so it can become more territorial about food.

I also make sure if people eat around the dog it’s at the main table and all food is not in snatchable areas in relation to a dog. The dog shouldn’t be able to get up to the table (remove methods if so) and people eating sitting on the floor is not going to work if your dog is reacting this way. If the dog is not behaving around food he is removed to a safe place (near to his own food)

Sorry when I meant removed, this shouldn’t be whilst you are eating but before it begins. In an area with your dogs own food

Crate him when you’re eating.

hand feed him only so that you create a positive link between hands and food

This started off with his own food, becoming aggressive. Growling and lunging at us. We have been taken this off him and giving it back.
Definitely don’t do that.

If anything the advice is to add treats/food to their bowl so they associate you approaching their food positively.

King Charles Caviler Spaniels are small. If you eat at the table where he can’t reach, or train him to stay out of the room while you eat then that will help temporarily while you look for a trainer.

Don’t try and solve this problem alone, get a good trainer/behaviouralist in. Resourcing guarding can be improved with the right training and you and your dog will have more of a chance if you get professional help.

Crate him or put him in a separate area when food is around

You can’t just ‘crate’ a dog if they are not trained! It will only add to the fear and distress he’s feeling. He’s a baby puppy. He’s now experiencing extreme fear around food and eating.

You’ll need to eat in shifts so someone stays with pup whilst the others eat. Honestly heaping more fear or stress on him is only going to make him worse long term. Manage it for now. Get help. Read up on Scientific based modern methods and how dogs learn.

Advising someone to start hand-feeding a dog that resource guards is incredibly irresponsible and has the potential to go very, very wrong.

This may be resource guarding or may be anxiety related to food due to the way humans behave during those times.

Get a good behaviourist to se the dog in real life to determine what exactly is going on. Anything else risks you attempting to fix a problem you don't understand.

At 5 months old, the chances are that the time and money spent now to really understand it and how to change your behaviour in order to change his, will be very spent. You are likely to find that with the right knowledge and time you can course correct this.

Thanks for all the comments. Just replying to some comments made.

my mistake in regards to taking his food away, this is something my parents did incase they ate something wrong, but now know this is wrong so will rectify this instantly.

we can hand feed him no issues. He is not aggressive to us when he has his normal food (does warn the cat off). It’s only when he has a treat (pigs ear) or yesterday when he was taken away from my son.

the cat is fed up high away from where he can get her food.

we have started locking him out of the room when we are eating.

when he has his food I have been slipping some extra bits in with him and he is fine.

he generally is a very placid dog, but from the start food has been an issue, which I now realise I have made worse.

@Tfutcher it's actually not wrong to take it away. Dogs should have manners especially when food is involved. If you was cooking and something fell on the floor that he couldn't take you'd want to be able to pick it up before he grabs it or bites you. This teaches them that they cannot what drops on the floor. Our dogs not food aggressive because from the day we got him we taught him to sit and wait, take his food away and put it back, touch him when he eats and can put our hands in and around his bowl. This is very important when you have have kids.

...and for MOST dogs a sure fire way of teaching them that they may lose a primary resource so to guard it with their life.

There are ways to teach a dog to give things up but this is not one of them. A default leave for example. Swapping. If you are mostly rewarding the dog for choosing to give things up, or swapping for something better then on the odd occasion when it is a DANGER to the dog to eat what they have stolen than you can get it out of their mouthes. I have done in the past. Do it all the time then they are expecting it. You have been lucky. Don't try this at home folks!

@Newpeep what happens when they've already swallowed it? I think your part of the problem here. You teach them from young and they don't grow up with these problems had dogs all my life and not had problems with food.

A dog is more likely to swallow food if they’ve been continually challenged for it. I’ve never had an issue taking food out of my dogs mouth IN AN EMERGENCY as I don’t do it routinely and they know I won’t remove a bowl from them or touch then when they eat.

I’ve also never had a resource guarder. I’ve had dogs who will willingly give food up for the most part for something else and if not then I’m able to take it.

So that suggests I’m really not part of the problem.

If you was cooking and something fell on the floor that he couldn't take you'd want to be able to pick it up before he grabs it or bites you

So teach a leave command, or a drop it command - you don't take their meal off them to try and teach them good manners.

If you were eating and someone kept randomly approaching you and taking your food away without warning, would you just sit and accept it? Or would you eventually get really pissed off and snap?

Regardless of whether you can train a dog to willingly surrender food by regularly taking it off them (I personally do not think you can), it would be a very poor choice of 'next steps' for a dog that has such anxiety around losing food that they have already bitten.

That really is pushing the dog towards a one way ticket to a rehome or worse.

A dog at that level of behaviour needs/deserves to be seen in real life before advice is given as to next steps.

@coffeecupsandwaxmelts you don't do it with every meal you do it for the first 4 weeks or so to show them that they don't need to guard ect training dogs with food is just as important as any other training. People who don't train their dogs correctly end up with problems like the op is experiencing. Teach them young and you won't have problems like this.

I've never once felt the need to take food off my dog and he's never once resource resource guarded anything.

You don't take a dogs' food off them to teach them how to behave - that's incredibly outdated and has the potential to be incredibly dangerous.