Preventing Resource Guarding & Swap Exercise
By Scotty Valadao (Animal Behaviour Consultant (Canine) (ABC of SA™)
When I was a child, I was always told to avoid any dog chewing on a bone or eating. Now while this is good advice for a dog that I am not familiar with, and to children in general, it is not a situation one wants to encourage with our own dogs, and all too often owners will not teach the dog to relinquish any object it has in its mouth. If we look at a wolf pack or dogs in the wild, what people are not aware of is that it is more than likely that a true alpha dog will be the dog that will share its bone with any other dog in the pack. Why, you may ask? Well, if he wants it back, he just takes it, no arguments or discussions! When a dog does exhibit guarding problems, this is a behavioural concern and should not be considered normal behaviour for family dogs and if after trying the Swap exercise there is no improvement, then a behaviour consultant should be called on for assistance. Dogs do not only guard food, they can guard toys, beds, favourite positions and it is not unusual for dogs to become possessive of certain people. This is a form of resource guarding and professional help is needed.
I am a firm believer that prevention is better than cure and using the Swap exercise below, as well as the food bowl exercise in the article Feeding the Pup section, will go a long way to ensuring that the pup does not start resource guarding. The main reason that dogs do not relinquish objects is because we never give them back – we take them away!
Swap Exercise
This is a wonderful exercise whereby you can teach your puppy to drop whatever is in its mouth without getting into a fight. The sooner this is started the better. This gives you an excellent method of getting unwanted or dangerous objects out of your puppy’s mouth without a tug of war and without injury.
Do this initially when your pup is hungry, not just after a full meal. Have a toy he likes (but not his favourite), play a bit of tuggy with him, then when he has it in his mouth and you are holding the other side, show him the treat (here make it something worth while, not dry dog food), say ‘swap’ and as he drops the object, give him the treat and here this is very important, immediately give him back the toy! The pup has now learnt that not only does he get a reward when he gives over an object, but he actually gets rewarded for doing it and he gets the object back! Practice this over and over, gradually working up to really favourite toys.
If your dog is reluctant to swap his favourite toy, then simply have two of the same. If the pup is reluctant to give up its most favourite toy, go back a step and start working with two objects that are the same, but not the same value. Once the pup has mastered this, it will be ready to start swapping its favourite object. He swaps it, gets rewarded and gets the same object back. What fun. This is another way to start the retrieve exercises when your dog gets a bit older. Don’t rush this, all learning should be fun – going into matric when you are only physically, emotionally and mentally to cope with standard four, would not be an advantage at all! The dog is always rewarded in some way for giving up an object – the more the object is valued, the bigger the reward.
What do you do when you have a pup that has been with you for a while and it has already started to show resource guarding tendencies towards a favourite bone or toy? Depending on the severity of the resource guarding, you can either start with the exercises covered in the Swap section, the information below or else call in a behaviourist for help. The quicker this problem is solved the better. This is an area that can quickly escalate and end up in reactive behaviour. To a dog the behaviour of growling, snarling or biting worked – the person left and the dog was left in peace, therefore reinforcing the reactive behaviour and making it more likely to happen again.
In addition to practising the exercises in the Swap section ensure that when you have had enough, you issue the cue of ‘finished’ and this object belongs to you, the pack leader, and it is at your invitation only that the pup is allowed to play with this object. This means that from now on, the favourite object is always taken away by the owner at the end of the play session. Keep on playing with the pup with this object, but on your terms only. This will also assist in raising the owner’s status in the canine/human pack.
One of the worst things an owner can do if a pup will not let go of an object is to have a fight with the pup, almost like a game of tuggies. This will just increase the behaviour of guarding and often ends up with the owner totally frustrated and even getting angry and taking the object by force. All this does is teach the pup that he was correct not to relinquish the object in the first place and this can lead to reactive behaviour.
Another behaviour that owners engage in when they cant get something out of the pup’s mouth is to chase the pup. This also teaches the pup that running away works and is the beginning of damaging the recall. Rather look for something that the pup really enjoys, clap your hands and start running away, and as the pup starts to follow, the owner starts a game with the pup and then does a swap. Everybody wins!
We need to bear in mind that pups learn from repetition and these exercises need to be taught over and over (did I mention over?).
With all the above, it must not just be the owners who practice these exercise, the ideal scenario is for visitors, especially children (under supervision of course) to engage in these exercises with pups. Another point to remember is not just to engage in these exercises in the home, practice them in the garden, at puppy school, while going for walks etc. When I walk my own dogs in the veld where they more often than not find totally unacceptable objects to pick up (unacceptable to me at least!), I always have some treats in my moon bag/pocket and my dogs will be appropriately rewarded. I have been lucky (practice perhaps?) that when my male finds something he knows I will not approve of, he brings it close to where I am to see whether or not I reward – which I always do – who says dogs are not smart!
I am a firm believer that prevention is better than cure and using the Swap exercise below, as well as the food bowl exercise in the article Feeding the Pup section, will go a long way to ensuring that the pup does not start resource guarding. The main reason that dogs do not relinquish objects is because we never give them back – we take them away!
Swap Exercise
This is a wonderful exercise whereby you can teach your puppy to drop whatever is in its mouth without getting into a fight. The sooner this is started the better. This gives you an excellent method of getting unwanted or dangerous objects out of your puppy’s mouth without a tug of war and without injury.
Do this initially when your pup is hungry, not just after a full meal. Have a toy he likes (but not his favourite), play a bit of tuggy with him, then when he has it in his mouth and you are holding the other side, show him the treat (here make it something worth while, not dry dog food), say ‘swap’ and as he drops the object, give him the treat and here this is very important, immediately give him back the toy! The pup has now learnt that not only does he get a reward when he gives over an object, but he actually gets rewarded for doing it and he gets the object back! Practice this over and over, gradually working up to really favourite toys.
If your dog is reluctant to swap his favourite toy, then simply have two of the same. If the pup is reluctant to give up its most favourite toy, go back a step and start working with two objects that are the same, but not the same value. Once the pup has mastered this, it will be ready to start swapping its favourite object. He swaps it, gets rewarded and gets the same object back. What fun. This is another way to start the retrieve exercises when your dog gets a bit older. Don’t rush this, all learning should be fun – going into matric when you are only physically, emotionally and mentally to cope with standard four, would not be an advantage at all! The dog is always rewarded in some way for giving up an object – the more the object is valued, the bigger the reward.
What do you do when you have a pup that has been with you for a while and it has already started to show resource guarding tendencies towards a favourite bone or toy? Depending on the severity of the resource guarding, you can either start with the exercises covered in the Swap section, the information below or else call in a behaviourist for help. The quicker this problem is solved the better. This is an area that can quickly escalate and end up in reactive behaviour. To a dog the behaviour of growling, snarling or biting worked – the person left and the dog was left in peace, therefore reinforcing the reactive behaviour and making it more likely to happen again.
In addition to practising the exercises in the Swap section ensure that when you have had enough, you issue the cue of ‘finished’ and this object belongs to you, the pack leader, and it is at your invitation only that the pup is allowed to play with this object. This means that from now on, the favourite object is always taken away by the owner at the end of the play session. Keep on playing with the pup with this object, but on your terms only. This will also assist in raising the owner’s status in the canine/human pack.
One of the worst things an owner can do if a pup will not let go of an object is to have a fight with the pup, almost like a game of tuggies. This will just increase the behaviour of guarding and often ends up with the owner totally frustrated and even getting angry and taking the object by force. All this does is teach the pup that he was correct not to relinquish the object in the first place and this can lead to reactive behaviour.
Another behaviour that owners engage in when they cant get something out of the pup’s mouth is to chase the pup. This also teaches the pup that running away works and is the beginning of damaging the recall. Rather look for something that the pup really enjoys, clap your hands and start running away, and as the pup starts to follow, the owner starts a game with the pup and then does a swap. Everybody wins!
We need to bear in mind that pups learn from repetition and these exercises need to be taught over and over (did I mention over?).
With all the above, it must not just be the owners who practice these exercise, the ideal scenario is for visitors, especially children (under supervision of course) to engage in these exercises with pups. Another point to remember is not just to engage in these exercises in the home, practice them in the garden, at puppy school, while going for walks etc. When I walk my own dogs in the veld where they more often than not find totally unacceptable objects to pick up (unacceptable to me at least!), I always have some treats in my moon bag/pocket and my dogs will be appropriately rewarded. I have been lucky (practice perhaps?) that when my male finds something he knows I will not approve of, he brings it close to where I am to see whether or not I reward – which I always do – who says dogs are not smart!
Punishment has no place in the teaching phase
The problem with punishment is that it is only half of the equation. Punishment stops the dog from doing whatever he was doing at that moment, it does not teach the dog what you wanted him to do instead. In fact if you only punish a dog without rewarding him for what you want instead, the dog will adapt to the punishment and revert to the old behavior. |
Barking Dogs
We have all had a dog of our own that barks or have had a neighbour with an intensely annoying barking dog. One that starts barking at around midnight and barks for the whole night or barks as soon as it’s owner switches on the lights in the morning - only he happens to work odd hours and goes to work at 04:00am. |
Introvert or Extrovert Behaviour
How about we replace the words dominant and submissive with introvert and extrovert? Remember we are looking at behaviour at this point. This exercise is not simply to determine whether a dog has a tendency to be an introvert or an extrovert in its nature. |