Rescue dog, strange behaviour with treats.

[Fermit The Krog]

We have three dogs. Our latest is a one year old rescue, an ex Romanian street dog. We get that where food is concerned he will have historically had to be protective of it, needing what he comes across as and when. With breakfast and tea he wolfs it down like he's scared of losing it, to the point we've bought him a compartmentised dog bowl to slow him down.

When we give the three of them treats (a daily chew or something gross like deep fried chicken feet!) he takes his to one side and doesn't touch it until the other two have completely finished theirs. Even though the other two show no signs of muscling in on his treat he spends most of his time growling at them whilst they eat. When the other two have finished theirs he will then usually tuck in.

We're a little at a loss, considering this behaviour is at odds to how he acts with his meals. Has anyone any thoughts? He is currently sat their on his bed growling at the other two, who are wondering what the hell they've done wrong

[saaby93]

Its not that unusual
Some dogs do the squirrel thing and try to hide the treat under a cushion, some leaves or anything.
Theyre not so good as squirrels at remembering where to find it

[Fermit The Krog]

saaby93 said:

Its not that unusual
Some dogs do the squirrel thing and try to hide the treat under a cushion, some leaves or anything.
Theyre not so good as squirrels at remembering where to find it

He's now tucking in without a care in the world, now the others are finished. One of them was actually scared to get in the beds near him, his face was 'what's up with that nutter?!'

[daemon]

If a dog is showing signs of aggression, having it castrated can usually help.

[-Z-]

Is the dog leased? You didn't state the miles or the total lease cost including vet visits.

[cptsideways]

Does he do the same with toys? Usually some training will steer them away from such behavior, it's just natural behaviour. Should be an easy fix may take some time though.

[Fermit The Krog]

daemon said:

If a dog is showing signs of aggression, having it castrated can usually help.

he is already castrated yes.

[Fermit The Krog]

cptsideways said:

Does he do the same with toys? Usually some training will steer them away from such behavior, it's just natural behaviour. Should be an easy fix may take some time though.

He can do, he started a bust up yesterday when him and one of the others went after the same ball I chucked in to the garden. All I could think to do was to 'tell him' in no uncertain terms to get in, so he knew it was out of order. Let him out five minutes later, and he waited patiently till the other was done with it, then helped him self to it.

[Iva Barchetta]

You might want this.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/forum.asp?h=0&a...

[cptsideways]

Fermit The Krog said:

cptsideways said:

Does he do the same with toys? Usually some training will steer them away from such behavior, it's just natural behaviour. Should be an easy fix may take some time though.

He can do, he started a bust up yesterday when him and one of the others went after the same ball I chucked in to the garden. All I could think to do was to 'tell him' in no uncertain terms to get in, so he knew it was out of order. Let him out five minutes later, and he waited patiently till the other was done with it, then helped him self to it.

One of our two is always a toy hogger, but once bored with them she never minded the other one playing with them.

[Fermit The Krog]

Iva Barchetta said:

You might want this.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/forum.asp?h=0&a...

Thanks for the pointer, how do I move the thread there?

[TooMany2cvs]

Fermit The Krog said:

Thanks for the pointer

I assumed it was just some generic mutt.

[Fermit The Krog]

TooMany2cvs said:

I assumed it was just some generic mutt.

You pillock!

Yes, he is, a pure Heinz57, breed unknown,obviously being a street dog, although I presume some Lab. This is him.

A plight that he needed rescuing from, a start in life I would wish on no dog

[cptsideways]

Try the bring a toy get a cuddle thing, rather than taking the toy away for himself. This should be a simple & easy one.

It's quite funny what you can teach them, ours we taught search & rescue as we called it. Hide three toys around the house, she has to find them & put them all in the basket to win (or a cuddle on the sofa in your case). Handy for toy tidying up At 15yrs our female one still does it, took a day of training at 3yrs but they tend not to forget! We also taught our to search for keys, after I lost a set once, over the years has proved a remarkably useful tool

Positive training works better than negative training (ie telling off) so always a swing a positive way to get them to do what you want.

[George111]

cptsideways said:

Positive training works better than negative training (ie telling off) so always a swing a positive way to get them to do what you want.

Negative training usually makes a dog worse not better.

We have a rescue Cavalier King Charles, a boy who spent the first 3 or 4 months of his life in a crate, leg sores from his own urine, unable to jump and had never been outside. Mrs G slowly loved him back to life and he's now the happiest, most playful dog you can imagine. He's also very clever and is very easy to teach tricks.

The only issue he had was being very aggressive guarding food, often attacking the other female dog to steal her food. This has all gone now and he's happy to eat with her and leave her food alone but there is still a little issue with treats, as in chewy treats that take 20-30 mins or more to eat.

One thing we tried was to de-sensitise him to them, so rather than giving him one pigs ear we put about 10 of them all over the floor - first time we did this he wasn't sure what was happening but it did help a lot, he's now able to eat a treat with the other dog in the same room. If she leaves it to get a drink he'll steal it but he won't attack her or take it if she's there, so a huge improvement.