Possessiveness

Possessiveness

I touched on possessiveness in food guarding and leaving objects advice section.

Some dogs have a possessive streak. The trouble is it can be dangerous, especially if you have children in the house. A child who tries to take a prized toy from a possessive dog could end up getting badly bitten. In fact, possessiveness is best thought of as a form of aggression triggered by ownership of toys, food, or space.

The typical possessive dog may carry his prize objects around, guard them, or even hide them. The problem comes when you try to take the object from him (or he believes you are about to – which can be more dangerous as you don’t anticipate the flashpoint) and he growls, snarls, or bites in retaliation.

The principles of coping with a possessive dog include:

  1. Teach “Leave It” – See Module 6, for those times when you have to get that special something out of his mouth.
  2. Don’t leave toys of high value out for the dog to guard and become possessive over.
  3. Buy several toys of the same value so that, if necessary, you can trade one for another (and teach him to give items in the process). Through regular training sessions with low value toys, teach him the idea of trading one toy for another, so he becomes accustomed to yielding toys to you.

Never confront a possessive dog and try to take items from him. You may get away with it once, but when he realises what you’re about, the next time he may bite and do serious harm. Get away from the idea that you should be able to take his toys away in order to show him who’s boss, this will end in injury (yours!).

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