Free Tips to Stop a Dog From Resource Guarding Their Kennel

For this Omaha dog training session, we helped 3 year-old Rottweiler, Bronx. We shared tips and tricks to stop a dog from resource guarding.

Because Bronx weighs over 100 pounds and had reacted to a few people with bites, I asked his guardians to take him out for some exercise prior to our session.

How to Stop a Dog from Demanding Attention

When I arrived, Bronx was very “in your face,” showing almost no respect for my personal space. He was also quite pushy and aggressive in asking for attention and affection.

I did not pet him when he nudged or jumped on me. However, I saw his guardians often pet him when he did the same to them. But if you pet a dog when it offers you that behavior, you are rewarding it and ensuring the dog will do it again in the future.

I went over my petting with a purpose philosophy with the guardians and suggested that they stop petting Brox completely unless he does something to earn that affection like sit or lay down. This will help Bronx see and respect them as authority figures, not just as petting assistants!

Next I suggested a few additional rules for them to put into place. These were small in size, but since they should be repeated often during the day, they will add up and affect the dog. That is, if the humans adopt and enforce them consistently.

I also suggested the guardians start to pet or reward Bronx each time he offers desired behaviors voluntarily. I call this passive training and it is probably one of the easiest ways you can train any dog.

Easy Ways to Stop a Dog From Resource Guarding

Next I asked the guardians to go over Bronx’s nipping incidents. The more details I got from the guardians, the more I became certain that this was a case of resource guarding the kennel.

Dogs that guard their things may bite someone who does not back away. They can also bite if someone keeps trying to take the item or space from the dog. I am pretty certain that that was the case here.

I pulled out my camera and had the guardians put Bronx in his kennel area so that I could share tips to stop a dog from resource guarding.

To stop a dog from resource guarding, teach the dog that humans will not take their things. When a human comes close, the dog should see it as a good thing. This is because of the positive rewards that happen at the same time. This is the key to helping a dog learn to stop resource guarding.

Hopefully the guardians will use these tips to stop Bronx from resource guarding ever again. It’s going to require them to practice in short sessions a few times a day every day for a few weeks. The dog slowly gets closer as he learns that their approach is a good thing in the kennel area.

If they follow the instructions in the free dog training video, they can help Bronx learn he doesn’t need to guard his things anymore.

I also stressed that it will be important for them to practice the drop exercise anytime Bronx has a low value item. One of the times that Bronx bit of a human was when the human was trying to take a rag out of his mouth.

Teaching the dog to drop will ensure that the humans don’t have to take anything else away from him again. If you have a dog that resource guards, forcibly removing the items from them is about the worst thing you can do.

To help the guardians remember all of the dog behavior tips that I shared in this in home dog training session, we filmed a roadmap to success video that you can check out below.