Apologies in advance for this long winded post!
We own a 2yr old Gordon setter dog, Taggart, who is fabulous apart for an issue with aggression around food. Let me explain the history...
The problem first occured when he was about 6-8 months old, he would growl & snap if you approached him/walked by whilst he was feeding. We sought guidance from our vet who advised us to basket muzzle him when feeding and purposefully put our hands in his bowl. If he attacked (which of course he did!) we had to forcefully put him on to his back in the submissive positon. In ignorance we followed this advice ( I cringe now when I think of it). This resulted in the poor dog being terrified to eat & even more aggressive around food. We very quickly stopped this method & then had a long patient task of hand feeding until he ever felt confident to feed out of his dish again. I was bitten a number of times during this phase, not through the hand feeding but if picking some dropped food on the floor whilst preparing dinner (ours not his) for example. When he did bite it wasn't just a snap but full on force, once needing hospital treatment.
The point we are at now is that he will feed from his bowl again but has to be alone outside or he just guards the bowls and growls. We have tried different bowls & locations but still the same result. The big worry I have now is that we have a 6 month old son who will be crawling/toddling before we know it & although we can shut Tag out to feed him it is obviously not the solution. My blood runs cold to think what could happen.
Any advice will be gladly welcomed, I feel terrible that we have caused this issue as he is such a terrific dog in every other way.
Paula

Dont feel bad, it is not your fault your vet gave ignorant advice, I do hope you have told him the awful result?

I do agree you will need to be careful with your young son around. What area do you live in ?

Lindsay

Hi Lindsay
Thanks for your kind words, if only we had known about this website at the time I'm sure we wouldn't be in this situation now! Tag is such a sweetie apart from this - he is very gentle around our son, in fact we call them the terrible twosome at the moment, we are forever having to prise little fingers from his face & I'm sure Tag rates his tongue far superior to any wetwipe!
We are in Wiltshire, a few miles outside Bath.
Paula