Tips to Stop a Coton de Tulear from Resource Guarding Food

For this Long Beach dog training session we helped 1 year-old Coton de Tulear Maggie (Center) stop resource guarding and also get over feeling anxious and stressed out so that she can be as laid back as her room mates Fosse and Jazz.

While all the dogs barked, the nuisance and disagree barking was primally coming from Maggie. As a dog behaviorist, I could tell right away that her backing was coming from an insecure place. She would bark and back up, dark around the room at times and carried herself with stiff body language and a twitchy energy.

I gave Maggie time to settle down and eventually she did. But any time I moved around or spoke too loud, she would immediately start back up again. This poor dog had gotten the impression she was in charge, but because no one else saw it that way (Ie didn’t respond to her commands or corrections), each day caused her to get more anxious and nervous.

We spent over an hour going over the lack of rules and structure and how that impacted the dog’s behavior. While its possible to not have any rules in place, when you have multiple dogs living together, that lack of structure usually results in unwanted dog behavior problems. That was certainly the case here.

After sharing a number of positive dog training tips and ways to add structure, I was ready to address the primary issue I was called in to fix, Maggie’s food resource guarding.

Maggie’s case of resource guarding food isn’t as severe as other dogs I have worked with as a dog behaviorist. Still, its a dog behavior problem that’s always best addressed early on. Dogs who resource guard often get more intense the longer it continues. Some dogs transition into resource guarding people, locations and non food items.

Ny the end of this in home dog training session, Maggie was sitting quietly next to me as I motioned, spoke loudly and moved around suddenly without a peep. Her guardians noted this change in her behavior despite the session only lasting a few hours.

If the humans enforce the new rules, pet with a purpose, reward desired actions through passive training and adopt the anti resource guarding technique outlined in the above video, her behavior problems should stop for good.

We finished things up with a roadmap to success video filled with many of the dog training tips I shared with her family thought this dog behavior training session.