Hi Guys, I have a 17 month old Jack Russell. He is a lovely mannered pup and is always pleased to see people and wants to play with his toys. He loves the Chewy bones from the pet shop, the only problem is, when he has them lately, he wont chew them. He GUARDS them with his life, and snarls when you go near him...regardless if your taking the bone or not!!
I dont want to stop giving him these bones as they are good for his teeth, and he looks forward to the trip to the petshop once a week to get it....even seems to know what day we're going!!!
Please help, not sure if this is normal or not.!!! :/

hi ,,, i had the same problem with my gsd he is 10 months old and he loved his pig ears but he would never eat them he would just sit there on his bed and guard them like yours but i have 3 children and whenever they went any where near him he would growl also his favorite toys which are tennis balls he would growl if any of the kids would try and pick up the tennis balls ,,, to be safe i just stopped giving him his pigs ears although he loved them i had to ,,,,, with his toys he is not allowed them in the house only when he is out for his walks when its me and him only....

Teach him the leave it command, when you take something from him you must swap it for a treat, so he knows if you give me that you get this yummy biscuit. Make sure you have the treat to hand before taking it from him. At first lure him away from the bone with the treat so he doesnt bite you :)

Mine doesnt growl when you go near him but if he has a chew and my ex goes and pats him on the head he will give a little growl, which is fair enough seeing as my ex used to wind the dog up and pretend he was taking it away :rolleyes: MEN!! But he will leave whatever it is he has if I give the command, I still always give him something in return though.

Your dog is resource guarding, these bones are more valuable to him than a lot of other things, the same way chocolate is more valuable to me than cabbage.

You can deal with this in several ways.

One of course is prevention, do not give them to him, then you avoid the problem but of course that does not teach the dog anything.

One of the worst things you can do to exacerbate this behaviour is to remove the guarded object because you are fulfilling the dog's fear, ie that if he does not protect his bone, it will be taken away.

All dogs from puppies should be taught to give anything up on request as one day they could have something potentially dangerous in their mouth that could proved lethal.

If your dog has something that he wants, try getting him to give it up by offering something even more valuable, and/or returning the original object.l

This is easily done.

A book that may help you is Mine! A guide to resource guarding in dogs by Jean Donaldson.  This  book describes strategies you can use for those people who need help in dealing with this issue.

@ the same time tohme