Resource guarding Yorkie

loulou23

Does anyone have advice. My yorkie who is usually very placid went for my nephew. The dog was sitting on the couch with hs bone which he is protective of. My nephew went to pet him and he lunged at him .fortunately he didnt make contact. My dog was a rescue dog who came from a neglected and abusive home. I know he shouldn't have been on the couch with the bone in the first place. The problem is I have a 4 month old son and the dogs behaviour has thrown up issues as to what we should do. Is this a warning that he is perhaps not suitable for a small child environment. I love him to bits and the thought of having to find him a new home is awful. My dog can be quiet afraid if he feels cornered and I have felt he good snap if he felt there was no escape route.
His previous owner is a lovely lady who I have a feeling would be delighted to have him back.

fatmammycat

loulou23 wrote: »

Does anyone have advice. My yorkie who is usually very placid went for my nephew. The dog was sitting on the couch with hs bone which he is protective of. My nephew went to pet him and he lunged at him .fortunately he didnt make contact. My dog was a rescue dog who came from a neglected and abusive home. I know he shouldn't have been on the couch with the bone in the first place. The problem is I have a 4 month old son and the dogs behaviour has thrown up issues as to what we should do. Is this a warning that he is perhaps not suitable for a small child environment. I love him to bits and the thought of having to find him a new home is awful. My dog can be quiet afraid if he feels cornered and I have felt he good snap if he felt there was no escape route.
His previous owner is a lovely lady who I have a feeling would be delighted to have him back.

He's resource guarding, and probably gave off a few signals that he was uncomfortable with being appoached, signals that sometimes children don't/can't always read. Some dogs can be quite aggressive about high value treats, bones are a great example, so I might minimise feeding these.
You can live perfectly with a resource guarding dog, once everyone is prepared to leave the animal alone with his valuables, the problem is young children don't always understand this. Frankly, we were always brought up to repect a dog's peace and space when they're eating/sleeping, but you still need to keep a close eye on the dog if children are around.

barbiegirl

loulou23 wrote: »

Does anyone have advice. My yorkie who is usually very placid went for my nephew. The dog was sitting on the couch with hs bone which he is protective of. My nephew went to pet him and he lunged at him .fortunately he didnt make contact. My dog was a rescue dog who came from a neglected and abusive home. I know he shouldn't have been on the couch with the bone in the first place. The problem is I have a 4 month old son and the dogs behaviour has thrown up issues as to what we should do. Is this a warning that he is perhaps not suitable for a small child environment. I love him to bits and the thought of having to find him a new home is awful. My dog can be quiet afraid if he feels cornered and I have felt he good snap if he felt there was no escape route.
His previous owner is a lovely lady who I have a feeling would be delighted to have him back.

I am sorry to say this but YOU set the dog up for failure. A dog should never have a bone near a child and a child should be taught never to go near a dog with a bone. You control the environment.
The dog is suitable, if he'd wanted to bite he'd have bitten. He gave a warning, so listen to him.
You also need to teach the dog, you the adult, that it is ok to be approached when he has a bone. By this I mean approaching a little more closely each time, not taking the bone, and giving him a high value treat. Do this consistently, so that should someone accidently approach when he has his bone he won't be too aggressive.
Again I am sorry but the fault on this one is yours. You need to learn from it and work a plan to deal with it. I hope I'm not coming across as harch because I don't mean to be.

kylith

loulou23 wrote: »

Does anyone have advice. My yorkie who is usually very placid went for my nephew. The dog was sitting on the couch with hs bone which he is protective of. My nephew went to pet him and he lunged at him .fortunately he didnt make contact. My dog was a rescue dog who came from a neglected and abusive home. I know he shouldn't have been on the couch with the bone in the first place. The problem is I have a 4 month old son and the dogs behaviour has thrown up issues as to what we should do. Is this a warning that he is perhaps not suitable for a small child environment. I love him to bits and the thought of having to find him a new home is awful. My dog can be quiet afraid if he feels cornered and I have felt he good snap if he felt there was no escape route.
His previous owner is a lovely lady who I have a feeling would be delighted to have him back.

Here's the advice: don't let children, or adults, near the dog while he is eating. What he did was do a warning air snap to indicate that your nephew should back off. He was reacting to protect his food, and if he wanted to bite your nephew he would have. Growling and snapping are good things for a dog to do because they are the warnings that continuing what you're doing will cause the dog to bite. If growling and snapping are reprimanded out of the dog, or if they're ignored, the dog could then go straight to biting with no warnings.

Great care has to be taken with all dogs and children, but especially with terrier breeds as they are feisty and tenacious. We had a JRTx when I was growing up and I felt her teeth many times, and each and every time it was my own fault for pestering her.

borderlinemeath

kylith wrote: »

Here's the advice: don't let children, or adults, near the dog while he is eating. What he did was do a warning air snap to indicate that your nephew should back off. He was reacting to protect his food, and if he wanted to bite your nephew he would have. Growling and snapping are good things for a dog to do because they are the warnings that continuing what you're doing will cause the dog to bite. If growling and snapping are reprimanded out of the dog, or if they're ignored, the dog could then go straight to biting with no warnings.

Great care has to be taken with all dogs and children, but especially with terrier breeds as they are feisty and tenacious. We had a JRTx when I was growing up and I felt her teeth many times, and each and every time it was my own fault for pestering her.

The way I see it is to say 'don't go near the dog when he's eating' is the easy way out.* That way you're setting the dog up to be a resource guarder if he shows even the slightest tendencies. All it takes is one visitor to the house or maybe an incident in kennels for 'leaving the dog alone when he's eating' to become 'the dog turned on me when I was giving him his food/treat'.

Best way is as stated above, start slowly though, if the dog is displaying body language telling you to keep away if he's got a bone then walk by but drop a treat, next time maybe pause while dropping the treat, then pause for a second or two while dropping the treat. All the while the dog is seeing that you are not a threat to his bone, in fact, you're giving even more treats. Eventually over time the dog may even drop the bone for the treat and let you take it. The treats must be high value, maybe chicken or a cut up frankfurter (seems to have an almost hypnotic effect with my dogs) to make the dog leave the bone but if done correctly it will happen.

My rescue did have food guarding issues when he arrived, now he will happily give food over, (and I feed them raw meat) although he will also let our other dog take his food if there's any left in his bowl which isn't ideal , luckily though he tends to be the faster eater and then looks at her bowl for her leftovers (not that there ever is these days!)

* absolutely this is the best advice to give children who should never go near a dogs food bowl as they can't read the signals that an adult can.