If your dog is resource guarding towards other dogs, you may find interactions between your possessive dog and other dogs quite troublesome. You can almost feel the tension in the air, and you are often worried about your dog getting into a serious fight and trying to safely separate them. Rest assured, you are not alone. Many dog owners have dogs who resource guard towards other dogs. What to do if your dog is resource guarding towards other dogs depends on the intensity of the problem. Having a force-free professional assess the situation is often your best bet in tackling this issue.
My Dog is Resource Guarding Towards Other Dogs
If your dog is resource guarding towards other dogs, you may have noticed that your dog is quite nervous when other dogs are around stimuli that he perceives as “valuable.” These valuable stimuli may include bones, toys, food bowls, sleeping areas and certain people.
Your dog may tense up, growl and threaten to bite the moment the other dogs comes near. The closer the proximity of the other dogs, the more the aggressive display escalates.
If you are lucky, the other dogs clearly understand your possessive dog means business, so they will steer clear and perhaps even offer some sort of “calming signals” such as lip lick or a yawn. This is the best outcome, your dog uses his “words” and the other dogs get it.
However, when dogs resource guard towards other dogs, there are always risks that things don’t go so well. Problems start when the other dogs don’t get the message or decides to fight back. Perhaps in some cases the confrontation is not intentional. The other dog may fail to recognize the threat or it’s underestimated because the owner is nearby and the dog feels safer and takes”more chances.”
Sometimes, older dogs may be the ones to get more in trouble. Perhaps sensory decline causes them to not hear well, or they fail to move away fast enough causing them to become particularly vulnerable.
[adinserter block=”4″]
Evaluating the Problem
If your dog is resource guarding towards other dogs, you may be obviously concerned, but how likely is your dog to truly injure the other dogs? There are many instances of dogs who resource guard and exhibit quite noisy displays but they never end up hurting any other dogs. These dogs therefore engage in mostly ritualistic displays, growling, teeth baring, but never really get close to actually injuring the other dogs.
There are owners of dogs who resource against other dogs who have owned such dogs for a lifetime and they never got into a serious squabble with the other dogs. The dog growls, grabs the toy in question and the ther dogs just know and let him be.
The matter changes dramatically though when when resource guarding dogs end up attacking and hurting other dogs when trying to be in control of a resource. These cases are more serious and require a management plan, and if feasible, behavior modification.
Managing the Situation 
If your dog is resource guarding towards other dogs it’s important that you take steps to keep your other dogs safe. This often entails managing your dog’s environment. Management may be a long-term solution or shorter-term one.
In a long-term management plan, dog owners recognize that their dog may never really get along well with the other dogs and there are substantial risks in even trying. These owners are deeply committed to separating the dogs to ensure their safety. This can be quite a challenge though if the environment doesn’t allow a safe plan.
Sometimes long-term management solutions risk putting a dent in the dog’s wellbeing and need for quality time with the owners (eg. keeping dog perpetually kennelled outdoors). In these cases, re-homing the dog to a household with no other dogs may be a better option.
Short-term management plan involves keeping the dog temporarily separated until the owner can seek the aid of a behavior professional. This is an ideal situation when rehabilitation is possible.
[adinserter block=”3″]
Partial management may be an option for owners of dogs who resource guard only in specific contexts that can be effectively controlled. This would entail not leaving toys around, feeding in separate areas to prevent dog conflict during mealtimes or giving bones when dogs are in separate rooms. Out of these contexts, the dogs are kept together, but always under careful supervision.
Of course, there are some risks with this latter management strategy, considering that some resource guarders may generalize their guarding behaviors to other stimuli/contexts. It works best for mild cases, where dogs have never showed serious intent to injure each other and can be distracted preventing things from escalating.
Behavior Modification for Dog-to-Dog Resource Guarding
If your dog is resource guarding towards other dogs, you want to have the issue addressed, especially if you are concerned your dog may potentially injure other dogs. It’s still important though to have the issue assessed by a professional if your dog is only mildly resource guarding because sometimes things may escalate.
As your appointment with a professional is coming up, compile a list of what exactly triggers the situation, what happens and what does the other dogs do. This list will turn handy at your first appointment.
Behavior modification in this case mostly entails preventing rehearsal of problem behaviors and creating positive associations to situations that triggered mild resource guarding in the past.
For instance, with the help of a professional, you can use counterconditioning to teach the dog who resource guards that the approach of other dogs makes great things happen. For safety, both dogs should be on leash, held by two different people. The resource guarder is kept under threshold at a distance and you gradually progress. You should then, after some reps, start seeing the resource guarder begin to relax and his expression should change from being worried to actually looking forward to the other dog coming near.
Here are just a few examples: let’s say Dog A is the resource guarder and Dog B is the victim. If fights would occur most of the time around the dinner table when you and your boyfriend are eating, a sample of behavior modification would entail something as such: Dog B is kept on leash nearby the table and fed food (not necessarily food from the table to discourage begging, but just on a mat nearby the table), while Dog A is on leash at a distance held by a behavior professional and fed food as well just a split second after.
Several reps of this take place over the course of several sessions. After several trials, Dog A should start looking forward to Dog B being fed food because it has become a predictor that Dog A will be getting food too. With time, more sessions are conducted at gradually closer distances, up until the dogs can be kept nearby with no tension. The ultimate goal may be to set up a nice dinnertime routine with both dogs laying on their mats. Dog B gets a long lasting treat to chew on like a bully stick and then Dog A also gets a bully stick. Dog A learns that when Dog B gets a bully stick, he will get a bully stick too and starts looking forward to it.
Both dogs must learn a solid down stay and to not get off their mats until released by the owner. Care must be taken to avoid conflict after being released from the mats as sometimes one dog may want to check the others’ area for leftover crumbs.
Here’ another example of behavior modification for resouce guarding: owner is cooking and Dog A approaches in the kitchen looking for food. Dog A is not fed any food until Dog B comes into the kitchen too. First sessions require both dogs on leash. Dog A is on leash and Dog B is on leash. Every time Dog B is brought into the kitchen, food is fed first to dog B, then to dog A. When dog B is not in the kitchen no food is ever fed. Dog A eventually learns that food happens only when Dog B is present.
Of course, these above are just examples and only the behavior consulutant coming into the home to assess the behavior can assess which method would work best or may suggest some totally different methods. In any case, strict management (preventing access to resources) may be necessary in the meanwhile and a back-up plan for emergencies where one dog or both dogs are taught to respond quickly to a cue so to interrupt them quickly before there are chances for fights. All dogs in the household should have a fluent response to training cues so to have the situation better under control.
[adinserter block=”5″]