Feeding your dog at an elevated level, starting by hand feeding slowly is a good way to begin the process of breaking your dog of guarding it's food, a behavior known as food aggression which is a form of resource guarding.
Resource guarding is when a dog becomes possessive over something that it believes to be "owned" by the dog. Many times, when a dog is able to hover over something that it believes it owns, showing of teeth and even aggression can occur in an attempt to scare the person or animal away from it's food, toy or whatever item it may be guarding.
In this instance, we are feeding Tyson while standing up, keeping the food above his head and thus eliminating his ability to hover over the food. By doing this, we are conditioning him to understand that the food is not his, and that by sitting at attention and giving the human his focus, he will earn the food as a reward.
This is the first step at showing any dog that they do not "own" the food, and therefore will eliminate their ability to guard it during these times.
To learn more about food aggression and understanding the next steps in fixing this type of behavior, use the "Services" link on your Doggo 411 app to book a training session with Craig or John now.
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