Hi {{first_name}} ,

A dog goes stiff over a bone when you walk past the kitchen. Almost everybody reads that as the dog getting dominant with them. What is in front of you is a dog who believes that bone is the last one he will ever see. It is high value and he doesn't want to lose it.

Here is the part nobody wants to hear. The way most people respond to that moment is what turns a growl into a bite.

In This Issue

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A dog with something valuable, who believes it is the only one he will ever get, behaves exactly how you would expect. He stiffens over it. He growls when somebody walks past.

Most owners read that as a challenge and take the item away to prove a point. Think about what the dog just learned. Every time a person comes close, the good thing disappears. You confirmed his suspicion for him.

Early on I always trade one bone for another. But before that I spend time convincing the dog that my hand and my presence is something good. I bring something else to the table. The dog starts to see that there is an abundance of what he is worried about, and that a hand coming toward him is the reason a second bone shows up.

That alone will not solve a serious case. It will keep you from making one worse while you build the part that actually holds.

A dog who cannot hold a sit with nothing in front of him has no chance of holding one over a marrow bone. Get the dog to understand obedience. Get him to understand it with real distractions in the picture. Only after that does the conversation about what he has and what he does not get to keep become possible.

Somebody wrote in about a dalmatian mix who does follow commands with a bone in her mouth. She sits when she is told, and she growls the whole way through it, until the item is out of sight.

The obedience was never the problem. The growl was the dog saying she does not accept your authority over that item, and no command you give while she has it will change her mind. That gets built away from the bone.

If my dog were to growl at me, he would get corrected. He is not allowed to do that. But that correction only means something if the dog already knows what was asked of him and chose otherwise. Correct a dog who was never taught, and all you have done is add pressure to a dog who was already worried about losing something. Growling is not always about a challenge, some dogs will growl in play, but that is another discussion.

A man asked me how to stop his mastiff mix from being aggressive over meaty bones. He could not get within six to ten feet of the dog while the dog had one.

My answer was blunt. Do not give him the bone. Not yet. Taking that item off the table buys you the time to build the obedience that makes it safe to hand back later.

Over 20 years in shelters has taught me that the dogs who lose their homes over this rarely got there in one jump. It started with a growl nobody addressed and it ended much later with a bite that cost the dog everything.

Handle the growl while it is still just a growl, and preferably build a relationship that will teach the dog the growl isn't necessary.

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Until next Tuesday,

- Robert