Resource Guarding and What to Do About It
All animals guard resources.
Intraspecific conflict over space, food, mates define a great deal of animal behavior. My mentor likes to remind clients that puppies that are three days old will fight over the choicest teat for mother's milk.
Most conflicts over resources are resolved between animals without violence because violence is risky and costly - after all, it often becomes reciprocal, and especially in the wild that means that you are risking death from an injury limiting your ability to hunt or a possible infection.
So, when you are keeping an animal - a megafaunal carnivore, as dogs are - in close intimate settings as most people keep their pet dogs, the likelihood of conflict increases simply because people are interacting with them much more frequently.
The best strategem in addressing resource guarding is to prevent it from escalating into violent conflict to begin with - feed dogs in their safe isolated crates, give them high value treats, toys, and chews in areas where they aren't going to be interrupted, thus making it where the dogs never have to develop a strategy of violence to retain their resources.
Most dogs with resource guarding issues were created that way in a few different manners - uncontrolled feeding situations are a big trigger for violent resource guarding (imagine just dumping a bag of kibble on the floor and letting eight dogs figure it out afterwards) or by consistent pestering by humans (like sticking your hand into a dog's food bowl, or letting uncontrolled toddlers enact mayhem on dogs while they're trying to eat).
Like most things, the dogs become violent as a stratagem because it works for them. Taking the resource and leaving, they are pursued. Nonviolent communication is ignored. Animals will always try a less confrontational method of establishing control before violence is attempted (with a variance due to temperament on how patient and how many times they try nonviolently before it comes to blows).
So how to address resource guarding once it becomes a point of contention?
1) Sensible management.
If a dog is resource guarding your bed at night from your husband as he tries to climb into the bed, unfortunately the dog loses access to the bed entirely so the point of contention is simply gone. I am a big fan of saying that if there isn't a problem with something, feel free to continue doing it, but if there is, it won't change unless you change what you're doing.
If a dog resource guards its food bowl, moving the bowl into a crate limits the area, and simultaneously helps the dog relax because they accurately realize that their food is enclosed with them and can't be stolen.
2) Train the YIELD
Resource guarding requires the control of space. If you teach the dog to yield that space in an organized fashion, then reward them handsomely for it, you're changing the risk assessment for the dog. Not only do I not lose control of the resource for yielding, I get additionally paid for it. Pretty soon, the dog sensibly chooses to yield and you can then safely interact with the resource.
3) Formalize the interactions
If you have a dog that resource guards toys, then formalizing play (introducing an OUT for relinquishing a toy, a release command for them to engage with the toy, and making sure you have control of the toy and work slowly up to addressing the most valuable and compelling items from items that are interesting but not driving obsession) makes a huge difference. When the dog can predict how things are going to go, it allows them to relax, and reduces the drive towards violence as produced by insecurity.
Always start these exercises in a controlled fashion and on a leash so that you don't mess up and get bitten.
Comments