Okay so I let my dog out and forgot to pick up the cat's food and he went straight to eating it. I said "No, that's not yours, you can't have that" and went to pick him up and he turned around and bit my hand. It wasn't hard enough to puncture the skin but it definitely hurt. And I know it was ENTIRELY my fault because I know dogs can get aggressive when it comes to food, and I bothered him while he was eating and he didn't know that wasn't HIS food so I can't blame him at all but still, it's not acceptable behavior in my eyes and he's never done anything like that before so it totally took me by surprise. As soon as I picked him up he went back in his pen. I wasn't really sure of another way to show him that's not acceptable behavior?
But I'm wondering is this something that he can be trained not to do or am I just going to have to be extra careful about situations like this?
Management is key in situations like this, or rather not having things he could guard laying around in the first place, but I do understand that accidents happen.
We play trading games! By surrendering the food the dogs get something even better so giving up there food is a Good Thing to them. You can also teach 'leave it', kikopup on youtube has some awesome videos. smile
Management is key in situations like this, or rather not having things he could guard laying around in the first place, but I do understand that accidents happen.
We play trading games! By surrendering the food the dogs get something even better so giving up there food is a Good Thing to them. You can also teach 'leave it', kikopup on youtube has some awesome videos. smile
Yeah I'm usually good about not leaving things like that out, and especially after this I'm going to be more aware of it but if it ever happens again I definitely don't want to risk being bitten again.
I'll try the trading thing if it ever happens again! And that's what I was thinking, teaching him "leave it". So I might work on doing that, too. It would be helpful for him to know while we're on walks because he's always picking up random stuff. Thank you!
Latrans
There are a lot of good ideas in this video.
Keep the cat food away until you've overcome this.
I generally do make a point of keeping the cat food out of the way because I'm sure it's not good for him in the first place, but he has to be on a strict feeding schedule because if there's food out he'll just devour everything because he just eats and eats and eats even if he's not hungry, so vet said I can't leave food out, he has to be fed 3 times a day etc etc etc because they don't want him to get overweight again. So cat food is usually up so he doesn't eat it, but sometimes I forget like I did this time and if it happens again I'd like to be able to handle it better.
That video seems perfect, thank you!
Shanna66
i would also do the nothing in life is free thing with his food. make him work and do a trick for every piece of food you give him
trading games also work great. my dad always seems to get very gaurdy dogs and trading works great for them
This seems perfect as well, thank you very much! I'll work on that if it happens again!
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