My lab (will be 4 yrs old next month) will growl every so often over food. He nevers growls regarding his food bowl. In fact, I usually reward him first by having him sit then snap my finger as a sign to start eating. I can take his bowl away with no problm while he is eating.

The growling occurs when he "finds" food. The latest episode happened when he found an empty yogurt cup on the counter. I went to take it away from him and he starting with a low, scary growl. He will be very aggressive. I have tried different methods to take it away from him from being nice to being aggressive. He will stand his ground. He has never snapped or bitten me although I tried to "safely" see how far he would go.

To get the found food away from him, I simply go get a dog biscuit. He immediately dropped the yogurt cup knowing I had another food for him. This has happens maybe once or twice a month. It always ends the same.

This is the only time he shows any aggression. He is usually a very submissive and lovable dog, but this growling does concern me.

Any ideas?? Thanks.

Skip

I'd practice this one , and see if it helps - when he 'finds' something don't scold or march over to him. Approach gently say something like 'good boy' or 'show me'( this is the one I use) or 'what's this?' ( all words have to be in an excited tone) to get his attention. Then scatter a handful of treats nearby - as soon as he starts on the treats then tell him 'good boy' and casually remove the 'found' item.

well the way I see it is you excersice the control over his food by snapping your fingers but when he has found food he thinks finders keepers .
what I want to know is why you feel you should have to control his feeding by deciding when he can eat ie snapping your fingers I get so fed up with people who make an issue out of feeding because the fact that you make it an issue Ie: snapping your fingers the dog can only have his basic right which is eating if you say so why?i want to know why people think oh i have a dog Im going to play with the fact that even though I put a feed bowl down he will then wait till i say he can have it.so atomatically making an issue of food. Why?
To me my dogs get fed I put their bowl down and they eat end of story no issue no problems

I only have to go out to the food bins to have my dogs sitting in position ready to eat :D & I would never dream of training them only to eat on a command. That is never seen in a wild dog pack

exactly its a circus trick and is annoying how would we like to just sit down to dinner and some pratt take our plate away

I remeber my mother balancing a biscuit on our dogs nose and not letting him have it that is so damn disgraceful

Mattie
Have to agree with you on this bit - I never make a play of taking away my dogs food - or stopping him eating what's offered as a meal. Especially as he is fed twice a day - if I'd waited all day for my evening meal I wouldn't be too happy at it being taken away mid munch - or being told to wait whilst I drooled. Having said that my dog never has a problem with us fairly exchanging 'found' items which may be dangerous. We have trained him so that when we say 'show me' he tends to offer the item of his own free will - in return he gets a treat. This was the advice on how to deal with this by our trainer too. She explained that dogs are scroungers and it is very much finders keepers in the wild - even a pack leader doesn't take away food from another dog - so it is easy to confuse dogs with our own 'human' manners.

trouble is the owners who excersise the " I must be able to take food away willy nilly" do not gen themselves up on proper dog behaviour ie: pack instinct or even begin to think in a pack type animal instinct just think on dominating the animal