Help with extremely food fearful/aggressive dog
Discussion
We have a 5 year old Lab who is just the loveliest dog in the world 99% of the time. He has always been very submissive and get frights easily with loud noises or things falling over, but he's got a lovely personality. He's very fit, bright, gets loads of walks/runs, eats decent quality food, and just wants to be cuddled and smooshed all the time.
He has one serious issue though. From when we first got him (8 weeks old) he has growled at anyone that went near him while he was eating.
As a family we're pretty experienced with dogs and have had puppies do this before. Our usual course of action is to teach the puppy that every time a hand comes near his bowl it's to put more/higher-value food in. This has worked for all of our other dogs who grew up to be totally accepting of all interaction while eating. Our other dog gets excited when you approach his bowl in anticipation of the extra food.
With the Lab, this didn't work.
Even when nobody is in the room with him, he "guards" his bowl and snarls/growls while he's eating. He even sometimes gets scared of the food sliding around the bowl. It can give him such a fright that he'll jump back and yelp, and refuse to eat any more (you can appreciate how grave the situation is when a Labrador refuses to eat!)
It has gotten so bad now that we can't actually give him treats - even really high value ones. He sniffs the air and gets all excited, but if you approach him he runs away. If you wait, he'll come to you and sniff the food but be too scared to eat it. If you put it down on the ground, he'll push it around with his nose but ultimately yelp and run away from it.
With the help of a couple of vets & behaviourists when he was younger, we've tried pretty much all we could think of, including:
- Adding food to the bowl every time we approach
- Hand feeding (while looking away, no intimidating eye contact)
- Raising his bowl so he can't guard it
- Every different type of feeding bowl/platform we could find, including anti-gulp bowls, and just putting the food on the ground, even putting it out on the grass so it doesn't slide about
- Different types of food - he normally eats dry but we tried wet and also fresh food diets for a while
- Had his teeth thoroughly checked in case of pain - but all was fine
- Exercises to increase his confidence
If you get too close while he's eating, he goes into full-on panic mode and unfortunately becomes extremely aggressive for a few seconds before "snapping out of it". He did bite me a couple of times when he was younger, before I properly learned about how to approach him. Luckily as a Lab he doesn't have the strongest jaw strength (and it was just a "jab" and run away, rather than grabbing and holding on) - but not a pleasant experience in any case.
The one thing that works better than anything else, is when I make myself as un-intimidating as possible. If I literally lie on the floor and face away from him (eye contact is a major trigger while he's eating) then he does get very relaxed and will take treats out of my hand while wagging and looking very happy with himself.
I do this sometimes, to give him some positive experiences around food - but I don't really like having my face at the same level as his when there's food involved. I know how quickly he can snap.
We are managing the issue as best we can - there is no chance of getting bitten now that we understand how to approach him, etc. But I feel so sorry for him.
He is such a lovely/happy dog, with this big dark cloud of fear constantly hanging over him
.
I would love to try and help him if at all possible.
I don't expect any miracles. I don't think I'll ever be able to handle him while he's eating - but I would love for him to at least be relaxed when left alone with his food.
All suggestions appreciated
He has one serious issue though. From when we first got him (8 weeks old) he has growled at anyone that went near him while he was eating.
As a family we're pretty experienced with dogs and have had puppies do this before. Our usual course of action is to teach the puppy that every time a hand comes near his bowl it's to put more/higher-value food in. This has worked for all of our other dogs who grew up to be totally accepting of all interaction while eating. Our other dog gets excited when you approach his bowl in anticipation of the extra food.
With the Lab, this didn't work.
Even when nobody is in the room with him, he "guards" his bowl and snarls/growls while he's eating. He even sometimes gets scared of the food sliding around the bowl. It can give him such a fright that he'll jump back and yelp, and refuse to eat any more (you can appreciate how grave the situation is when a Labrador refuses to eat!)
It has gotten so bad now that we can't actually give him treats - even really high value ones. He sniffs the air and gets all excited, but if you approach him he runs away. If you wait, he'll come to you and sniff the food but be too scared to eat it. If you put it down on the ground, he'll push it around with his nose but ultimately yelp and run away from it.
With the help of a couple of vets & behaviourists when he was younger, we've tried pretty much all we could think of, including:
- Adding food to the bowl every time we approach
- Hand feeding (while looking away, no intimidating eye contact)
- Raising his bowl so he can't guard it
- Every different type of feeding bowl/platform we could find, including anti-gulp bowls, and just putting the food on the ground, even putting it out on the grass so it doesn't slide about
- Different types of food - he normally eats dry but we tried wet and also fresh food diets for a while
- Had his teeth thoroughly checked in case of pain - but all was fine
- Exercises to increase his confidence
If you get too close while he's eating, he goes into full-on panic mode and unfortunately becomes extremely aggressive for a few seconds before "snapping out of it". He did bite me a couple of times when he was younger, before I properly learned about how to approach him. Luckily as a Lab he doesn't have the strongest jaw strength (and it was just a "jab" and run away, rather than grabbing and holding on) - but not a pleasant experience in any case.
The one thing that works better than anything else, is when I make myself as un-intimidating as possible. If I literally lie on the floor and face away from him (eye contact is a major trigger while he's eating) then he does get very relaxed and will take treats out of my hand while wagging and looking very happy with himself.
I do this sometimes, to give him some positive experiences around food - but I don't really like having my face at the same level as his when there's food involved. I know how quickly he can snap.
We are managing the issue as best we can - there is no chance of getting bitten now that we understand how to approach him, etc. But I feel so sorry for him.
He is such a lovely/happy dog, with this big dark cloud of fear constantly hanging over him
.I would love to try and help him if at all possible.
I don't expect any miracles. I don't think I'll ever be able to handle him while he's eating - but I would love for him to at least be relaxed when left alone with his food.
All suggestions appreciated
It's time you took charge of the bowl. Make him sit some distance away from it before presenting him with food. Make him realise that you can pick the bowl up anytime you like, perhaps to put more food into it before you give it to him. Also, avoid confrontation and don't disturb him when he is eating as you'll be reinforcing the bad behaviour.
You could initially have somebody else do this if you think he's got a gripe with you.
You could initially have somebody else do this if you think he's got a gripe with you.
Boosted LS1 said:
It's time you took charge of the bowl. Make him sit some distance away from it before presenting him with food. Make him realise that you can pick the bowl up anytime you like, perhaps to put more food into it before you give it to him. Also, avoid confrontation and don't disturb him when he is eating as you'll be reinforcing the bad behaviour.
You could initially have somebody else do this if you think he's got a gripe with you.
No this is wrong. It is a fear based aggression so this will not work. It is also impossible to guarantee that you will never accidentally disturb them whilst eating. You could initially have somebody else do this if you think he's got a gripe with you.
5yrs on his behaviour is already set in stone/reinforced etc.
Honestly OP you need to get back to a trainer/behaviourist but someone very knowledgeable in this area it is going to take a lot of commitment to break this behaviour, you may need to even consider medication designed to help with anxiety.
Someone like this guy. Ed Meakin, ex police dog handler and very very good, reward based trainer, gets fantastic results. I can vouch for him as I know him personally (his wife is a vet who I worked with for years and I knew him when he was a police dog handler!)
This is just a screen shot of a part of his fb page.
This is just a screen shot of a part of his fb page.
Orchid1 said:
I wondered if someone would refer to this! Absolutely how not to do it. I hate CM, so up himself and certainly not the great trainer many seem to think he is. bexVN said:
Boosted LS1 said:
It's time you took charge of the bowl. Make him sit some distance away from it before presenting him with food. Make him realise that you can pick the bowl up anytime you like, perhaps to put more food into it before you give it to him. Also, avoid confrontation and don't disturb him when he is eating as you'll be reinforcing the bad behaviour.
You could initially have somebody else do this if you think he's got a gripe with you.
No this is wrong. It is a fear based aggression so this will not work. It is also impossible to guarantee that you will never accidentally disturb them whilst eating. You could initially have somebody else do this if you think he's got a gripe with you.
.
Orchid1 said:
I knew what this would be before clicking it. This episode almost made me cry . How could he not see that bite coming? What on Earth did he expect to happen, acting like that around a terrified dog?? And afterwards, why not show the tiniest bit of humility and say "that was completely my fault, it was the wrong approach, we need to try something completely different"... No... He just did more and more of the same until he "broke" the poor dog and took it away from its family.
The behaviour is incredibly similar to ours and it made me wonder if this is a common Lab trait or just a coincidence.
Bex - coincidentally, the last behaviourist we saw was a retired police dog handler with tonnes of experience. After trying out a few sensible suggestions and none of them making more than a minuscule difference, he actually "borrowed" the dog for a week because he was convinced we were doing something wrong when he wasn't there. The Lab loved him so no issues there
.At the end of the week, no difference, he said he's convinced that there must be some underlying issues we're not aware of, such as unknown pain or psychological issues. He said he'd never seen a dog behave the way our Lab does.
One of the things he occasionally does and the behaviourist noticed (which is what prompted us to check his teeth) is - if you can coax him into accepting a treat, he will very carefully vibrate his teeth over it as though he's scared to bite down, then crunch into it and instantly yelp out as if he's in pain and literally spit it out and run away from it.
We've had his teeth checked over under GA by two different vets, as well as lots of poking and prodding inside his mouth at home, and as far as we can tell there are no physical issues there.
It's like he's terrified something will happen to him while he's eating
I'm more than willing to try another behaviourist though. The one you posted is too far unfortunately, but I'll search again locally.
I don't expect him to ever be perfect, but the fear and snarling while eating on his own needs to stop.
Boosted - He does do that, although "taking charge of the bowl" sounds somewhat more aggressive than what we do
.I've made all of our dogs sit and wait for an "OK" command before eating. It's even more important with the Lab because I don't want him near the food while I'm leaning down with the bowl - that's just asking for trouble. He is actually an exceptionally "polite" dog, and has no issues whatsoever about us handling his food/bowl and shows no interest in human food or food dropped on the floor. It's only once the food is in front of him that you notice the tension radiating out of him and the snarling begins as he attacks the bowl.
Our other dogs (current and previous) have always been happy to see me approach the bowl while they're eating because they know they're getting extra. There is such a stark contrast with the Lab!
Boosted LS1 said:
What I've posted can be done kindly and progressively without risk and in a rewarding environment. The dog can sit at the far end of the kitchen before being called to receive his reward. Meanwhile, before he's called the owner can handle the bowl as often as he wants. Once trust has been built up the dog will hopefully realise that the owner only handles the bowl to offer a reward or something of benefit to the dog.
Funny how the way something is worded can make such a different impression, I can see where you are coming from this time and it doesn't sound as agressive as I initially read it. I agree with what Bex has suggested previously, I think you really need to be working with a (good) behaviourist who can help. If this behaviour is solely isolated around food you may not need meds but a strict management protocol. Xanax can inhibit other things and can also increase hunger, Fluoxetine takes a while but can be really successful if behaviour modification and counter conditioning runs along side.
A good behaviourist should ask for a full vet check and bloods before starting a programme with you to rule out any other disorders or conditions that may be going on. If they don't request this at the same time as an assessment then they probably aren't worth using. Food issues are extremely tricky with dogs - where are you in the UK? Good luck
A good behaviourist should ask for a full vet check and bloods before starting a programme with you to rule out any other disorders or conditions that may be going on. If they don't request this at the same time as an assessment then they probably aren't worth using. Food issues are extremely tricky with dogs - where are you in the UK? Good luck
I was actually thinking of something like Selgian, have seen it work well for a dog with agoraphobia of all things, not a miracle cure but certainly reduced his anxieties and few side effects. Also been used for separation anxiety.
My feeling is that it is a route worth considering as you have tried various techniques and therapies over the years already.
If negative side effects are apparent you can always stop them but you should use them alongside further training as well (preferably a good trainer again) and obviously under the guidance of his vet etc
http://www.ceva.co.uk/Products/Products-list/Selgi...
My feeling is that it is a route worth considering as you have tried various techniques and therapies over the years already.
If negative side effects are apparent you can always stop them but you should use them alongside further training as well (preferably a good trainer again) and obviously under the guidance of his vet etc
http://www.ceva.co.uk/Products/Products-list/Selgi...
Edited by bexVN on Tuesday 31st January 15:51
Edited by bexVN on Tuesday 31st January 15:52
bexVN said:
I was actually thinking of something like Selgian, have seen it work well for a dog with agoraphobia of all things, not a miracle cure but certainly reduced his anxieties and few side effects. Also been used for separation anxiety.
My feeling is that it is a route worth considering as you have tried various techniques and therapies over the years already.
If negative side effects are apparent you can always stop them but you should use them alongside further training as well (preferably a good trainer again) and obviously under the guidance of his vet etc
http://www.ceva.co.uk/Products/Products-list/Selgi...
Will ask my behaviourist about that as well - thanks My feeling is that it is a route worth considering as you have tried various techniques and therapies over the years already.
If negative side effects are apparent you can always stop them but you should use them alongside further training as well (preferably a good trainer again) and obviously under the guidance of his vet etc
http://www.ceva.co.uk/Products/Products-list/Selgi...
(I have one very anxious dog who is extremely worried about leaving the house/being outside as well as other things).
Thanks for that, I'll make an appointment with our vet to have a chat about it.
. Sounds like the opposite of ours... When he's outside in a wide open space he's in his element and completely unbreakable. He jumps into rivers for a swim when it's below absolute zero, leaps off 10ft drops and keeps running without hesitation. If he could spend his whole life outdoors he'd be happy...
parakitaMol. said:
(I have one very anxious dog who is extremely worried about leaving the house/being outside as well as other things).
Sorry to hear that . Sounds like the opposite of ours... When he's outside in a wide open space he's in his element and completely unbreakable. He jumps into rivers for a swim when it's below absolute zero, leaps off 10ft drops and keeps running without hesitation. If he could spend his whole life outdoors he'd be happy...Boosted LS1 said:
Could this dog have bitten into something painful in it's earlier years such as an electric cable?
One of our theories is that something happened at the breeders which made him this way. We got him at 8 weeks and right from the start it was proper growl & hackles if you touched him while he was eating.It was quite a big litter - IIRC 11 puppies. They were all big and chunky, no runts, all seemed to be getting fed well.
Even if he had to fight for his food for a few weeks, it is bizarre that he hasn't responded to any attempts to help him, and has gotten worse over the years.
anonyrat39 said:
Thanks for that, I'll make an appointment with our vet to have a chat about it.
. Sounds like the opposite of ours... When he's outside in a wide open space he's in his element and completely unbreakable. He jumps into rivers for a swim when it's below absolute zero, leaps off 10ft drops and keeps running without hesitation. If he could spend his whole life outdoors he'd be happy...
Thanks parakitaMol. said:
(I have one very anxious dog who is extremely worried about leaving the house/being outside as well as other things).
Sorry to hear that . Sounds like the opposite of ours... When he's outside in a wide open space he's in his element and completely unbreakable. He jumps into rivers for a swim when it's below absolute zero, leaps off 10ft drops and keeps running without hesitation. If he could spend his whole life outdoors he'd be happy... He's complex muddle of many tricky things but I have great support Good luck with yours and do post up how you get on
Just a random thought, might he feel more relaxed and confident with his food if you give it him outside in the garden rather than him having to eat confined and enclosed indoors?
We feed our flattie outside all year round because when we first got him he was a bit aggressive at feeding time with our other dog, he clearly prefers and enjoys eating outdoors now, eats at a calm steady pace and stops every few mouthfuls to sniff the air and watch the birds!
We feed our flattie outside all year round because when we first got him he was a bit aggressive at feeding time with our other dog, he clearly prefers and enjoys eating outdoors now, eats at a calm steady pace and stops every few mouthfuls to sniff the air and watch the birds!
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