I have had my rescue dally for just over a week now and he is settling in brilliant apart from his food posesiveness.
When I got him from the kennels I was told about this and when I first went to see him and entered his kennel he stood over his food growling.
The first couple of days were an absolute nightmare as he was trying to grab the bowl of food out of my hand and then when finished trying to pinch my other dogs food.
He now knows he gets his food at the end of the kitchen and he will go and wait there.
I feed both dogs, bitch gets hers put down for her then Charlie is told to sit and I give him his.
I stand next to him the whole time he is eating telling him he is  a good boy and generally talking to him.
If I attempt to stroke him he will growl to warn me off.
We have had no problems with toys, they share them.
If he is given a rawhide bone he is terrible, my other dog cannot get within 6ft of him and he growls, I can walk past him and he's o.k but nobody else.
We have to bribe him with other food to get it off him as I think he would bite.
I've read various threads on this site about feeding him small several amounts of food rather than one large amount and this makes sense and I will be doing this from now on.
As for the bone situation I could do with some advice.

If he has been a stray he will have learnt to gurad food for the obvious reason to stop it being taken away, You need to teach him that you are a provider & not a remover of food, why are you giving him rawhide chew is it for clean his teeth ? If so he would be better having raw food like chicken wings as part of his diet that he can eat the whole thing.

I would not feed rawhide at all as chemicals are used in the production & dogs have been choked by them.

When you feed him put only part of his food into his dish & when he has eaten it then put another part into the dish until he has been fed. Are you training him at all ? If you are I would use treats(as part of his diet of course)as reward again reinforcing the idea that you provide food for him.

He is not being dominant over his food. merely ensuring it is not taken away

You need to implement a regime of desensitisation and counter conditioning with thim.

Resource guarding is perfectly normal in dogs they are hard wired for this in order to survive, he who has the nosh, lives! :D

i don't get too upset about inter dog resource guarding but avoid it by feeding separately, I do not expect my dogs to do "sharing".

However I do make sure they are perfectly safe around humans.

I would remove high value resource items like bones and manage the environment so these occasions are minimised and therefore you can concentrate on the food bowl.

Standing over him and stroking him at the moment is, IMHO, far too advanced and you are making the situation more not less uncomfortable.

Better to put down loads of bowls and throw in food to each one so that he has nothing to guard, gradually move into putting extremly valuable food, more valuable then he is actualy eating, into it as you move around.

When the dog is comfortable with this and not showing any growling or freezing behaviour I would then move on to touching the bowl perhaps with a target stick before adding something then with your hand then removing empty bowl and adding something yummy until evantually you can approach, take bowl whilst eating as the dog associates your presence and bowl removal with the ADDITION of goodies not the removal of them.

It will take time and then you need to repeat the procedure with anyone else living in the house so that it is not specific to you.

Naturally you need to have the other dog outside the room when this is going on otherwise the dog will be worried about you AND the dog.

HTH

I would not feed him any bones etc until you have dealt with his food possessiveness.
Put his bowl on the floor and then drop a little of his food into it.When he has eaten this repeat the process until he has had his meal....the idea is for him to associate your hand going near his bowl as a good thing.
Archer

I agree with the above posts, it's all about association and not going too far too fast :)

It's a good job the dog was rehomed to you but I am a little concerned the rescue did not seem to offer any help towards this.

Lindsay
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Thanks for the replies, I will start that tomorrow morning.
I think the kennels were relieved to see him going as he had been rehomed and sent back twice because of this.
So feeding them in seperate rooms is recommended, they are being fed together at the moment but at seperate ends of the kitchen and my other dog doesn't go near him because of his warnings, he now knows not to go near her when she is still eating.

But if you leave them in the same room like this both dogs can be stressed; one because it fears another may eat its food so its adrenalin level is raised and the other because it fears being attacked so the same thing is happening.

To be successful you must make the whole situation less riddled with tension.......................  So I would definitely feed them separately in different rooms and you MUST keep the other dog out whilst you are desensitising the other one.

The dog can be reintroduced at a distance as part of the programme once you have sorted out the other ones issues with people.

Just a quick update and to make sure I'm doing this right. I've been feeding Charlie and Casey in seperate rooms as suggested and charlie sits and waits until I put food into his bowl, he repeats this process about 6-7 times until it's all gone and he is looking a lot more relaxed.
We had a few grumps and growls yesterday but he never got a walk yesterday before his food and I was also not usual myself so maybe he sensed this. I told him NO very firmly and told him to sit down and he did and looked at me as if to say "I was just testing"
I've been feeding him like this for a week now and I'm going to start putting my hand on/in his bowl next (scary).
I have a dummy hand on a hose which I may attempt to use first (I value my hands).
Am I moving too fast?
I don't want to mess things up for him by moving too quick.

I think you may be going too fast, yes :)

I would  avoid saying No too because his growling means he is still uncomfortable, whereas once he is happy - totally happy - he  will not want to growl at all, but will think "brilliant the human is coming near my food bowl". It's about the dog learning rather than about "training" in a way.

You are trying to remove the need for the dog to growl in the first place.

Lindsay
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I think some people on this site must have been dogs in their previous lives as you are so keyed up to what dogs must think.
Once it's explained it makes perfect sense.
Rather than telling him No should I just ignore it? I understand what you mean, growling is his warning wheras with no warning he could just bite.
How long should I leave it before going to the next stage?

I personally would never say No in this situation partly for the reasons you have already mentioned. So yes ignore it, if possible try to work things so that he doesn't growl. For example lots of bowls may be better than his one, and so on to start as I think Tohme mentioned. Food bowl issues are about fear - fear the food will be taken in some way. You need to build up the trust and take it slow and steady. Anything else will be counter productive. It's very hard to say when to progress, I would think it's best to really get to know him and understand his body language - Gwen Bailey has a good book for owners called "What's my dog thinking?" which is good because it has photos of real dogs :)

I would err on the side of caution if anything, it wont hurt. Make sure too you aren't "hovering with intent" too much :D

Lindsay
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