Just got a new puppy today, and i was testing how food aggressive he was and stuck my hand in the bowl and nothing happened but when i tried to take it out of his mouth he growled and i popped him he growled again and i then popped him (NOT HARD) and he bark/ yelled out at me. Now this is not going to be tolerated as I have another dog in my house and a 10 year old sister. Both males and such but one is old and a puppy. What should I do? is this normal?

Well, I personally wouldn't have hit the puppy, but that's just me....

You need to practice taking away and giving aka trading. Start by feeding him out of you're hand instead of a bowl, so he see's the hand not as a threat. You can also give him something of really high value, like a chew toy or a kong. Once he's really into it, offer him a treat (like roast beef or something) and take the kong away, give the treat and give the toy back. Keep repeating this and he'll learn that you taking thing's away aren't a bad thing.

Popping the dog is only going to make the dog fear you and being so young, you don't want him to become skittish and afraid of people. That's only asking for trouble down the line. Just stay positive and I'm sure you're puppy will get the hang of it. Just have patience, he is just a baby

Don't pop him.  If you do it even lightly, you are kind of giving him a reason to bite you and not just warn you.  Just remove the food, wait for him to be calm, and put it back down.  I assume he is pretty young, so that should be easy.

If he continues to growl or snap, try hand feeding him until he trusts you (few days).  I don't know if it is normal, but it seems some puppies have this issue and some do not.  With hand feeding, I broke my shepherd mix of it in a very short time.  With all my dogs, I regularly will pick up their food and toys.  They always get it back so none have shown food agression including my shepherd mix who had this issue as a puppy.  She doesn't share her food with dogs though, so they all understand which bowls are their bowls.  Loki is now 6.5 months or so and when it is feeding time, he runs to his bowl, sits, and waits for food.  When I put the food down, he must wait for ok.  I did this by always making him sit when I fed him and then once sit was good, I added the wait.  If he lunged for food, I didn't put it down and would pull it back up.  Now he runs to his dishes and waits by himself for the ok after just couple months of routine.    

My 2 older dogs will bring me their treats for nothing if I ask.  The way I'm getting Loki to do this is to ask him to come, drop item in my hand, and then I click and reward when he drops it.  If a dog is food aggressive, I know my dog as a puppy was also toy aggressive.  So this is how I worked with my shepherd mix too.

Why did you try to take food out of the dog's mouth? I can understand needing to take a toy or bone out of his mouth, but why food?

Also, are you aware of how vocal huskies can be? Pippa is always making some kind of sound, but very rarely growling. She woo-woos in protest sometimes when I make her sit before food or if I want to take a bone away, but she isn't being aggressive. She's just letting me know she doesn't want to do whatever it is I want her to do.

Because he's young, it shouldn't be difficult to fix this though, if it is food aggression. If he'll take food from you, try hand feeding him for a week or two, then move to placing it a little bit at a time into the bowl. Also try trading like Kelly suggested. Make sure he understands that you might take something away, but he's sure to get something more exciting in its place.

I took it out of his mouth because if he gets something poisonous i can take it out and nothing will happen. I can take things out of my other dogs mouth just fine. A dog needs to give you so much respect and submission fully, so there is no fear or karma in the air and then sweetness comes in. I know he's a puppy and when i say popped its more of a tap, not even using force. I will try the above methods and see. After all he's a husky, he shouldn't be that aggressive. It is his first day home and he is 7 weeks old today

jbsdrumboy wrote:

I took it out of his mouth because if he gets something poisonous i can take it out and nothing will happen. I can take things out of my other dogs mouth just fine. A dog needs to give you so much respect and submission fully, so there is no fear or karma in the air and then sweetness comes in. I know he's a puppy and when i say popped its more of a tap, not even using force. I will try the above methods and see. After all he's a husky, he shouldn't be that aggressive. It is his first day home and he is 7 weeks old today

I can take stuff out of all 4 of my dog's mouths as well, but I would never attempt to take kibble out of their mouth. That is just completely unnecessary to me. That to me is showing your dog absolutely no respect. Respect goes both ways. Why would your dog respect you when you don't respect it?

Have you done any research on Siberian Huskies before??

Huskies can turn aggressive if you try to get them to submit. After having my shepherd mix who knows drop it from 50 ft away, that is so much easier then pulling stuff out. I am now vividly remembering the times I unknowingly pulled dead animals from my labs mouth. That said, drop it is one of the commands I am trying to work most with for my puppy. Inside and on leash it is now pretty reliable. Still need to work more on it though for back yard when he is off leash.

It shouldn't make a difference if its food or what. If I have a child try to play with the dog while he's eating ( in all worse possible case scenarios) he should let her take it and show no sign of aggression. My other dog is that way but is part lab, and yes i have done adequate research on huskies, talking to the breeder and trainers, etc. for months. I do understand that I probably shouldn't have tried to take the kibble, but I want him to learn submission now before her gets older. My other dog was jumped by two pitbulls around 4 years ago and they just about killed him. He has no agressive bone in his body but due to someone fighting pitbulls and keeping the dogs in our neighborhood they got out and came in my yard and malled him. Thank God the neighbor was there (it was during the day) and tased them or he would've died. He still is sweet as ever. When I brought the puppy home today though the first thing he did was growl at my lab, which in turn made the lab growl cause its his turf. Is that normal for a puppy? I just want him to grow up in harmony. My listens extremely well and is around 7 years old so when I say stop he stops. I just need advice on what to do, other than part aggression the puppy is excellent

Oh my goodness so many out of date theories are flying around here! Submission has nothing to do with being able to take something out of a dogs mouth- that's trust and relationship building. I have 7 dogs in my house right now and I can take anything out of any of their mouths if it came down to it. Yesterday a large onion chunk fell to the floor and my new foster grabbed it. I opened his mouth and took it out with no trouble at all and he got a nice slop of PB in his mouth.

You have a 7 week old puppy, you need to focus on building a relationship and trust. He is not aggressive. I understand the wanted outcome of sticking fingers in the dogs bowl- but it is not something to practice. It makes it worse in a large majority of dogs. Anytime your fingers or hand comes near the bowl it needs to only be for good things. Tossing bit by bit into the bowl is a nice way to reinforce that over and over. Your hand means things are COMING, not going away.

There is no karma or aggression in the air. Dogs just want a good relationship and the best way to build a good relationship and establish trust is show your dog how GOOD you are and all the GOOD things that happen when you're around. Shoving your fingers in his bowl is going to make him eat faster and be panicked you're taking away food.

I have a lab, shepherd mix, and husky mix.  I think they can all be great dogs, just some methods work better on certain breeds and a dog like a lab is very biddable and responds to almost any method.  My shepherd mix was aggressive as puppy when I first got her.  She growled at my lab, would try to bite him and was food/toy aggressive to people.  It scared me since she was tiny in comparison and 7 months or so younger then my lab.  After a few weeks of working with her all was good.  As she got older, I never had concerns with her and children.  Her and my lab have grown up together and no bad incidents from since they were puppies.  She has been trusted since that time to eat with kids around and kids can take her toys/bones.  Though I don't leave my dogs alone with very high value treats that last along time.

My new puppy is submissive to my dogs.  My introductions to my older dogs was nearly seamless as he rolled on his back and licked their muzzles.  Though my older dogs have growled at him occassionally to communicate what is not ok.  My puppies introduction to my best friends dog didn't go without a hitch though.  I think her dog growled first and then he started. He never was submissive to her dog during first introduction, but they did get over it and are friends now.  We just took it slow and started walking them together.  Then, both calmed down and now they play with each other. Is your male lab mix intact? My friends dog was and I think it may complicate things more.

It can be surprising to see a puppy growl at another dog, but it can be worked out in many cases.   I would take it slow with their time together and read up on intros.  Do not push it and make experiences between them positive.  In the end, my female and lab ended up being best buddies for going on 12 years even though I was scared by their first introductions.  Loki has a new friend and is helping me get my friend's dog more socialized with other dogs.

Also, keep in mind, he's a super young puppy. Older dogs let puppies get away with pretty much anything. Growing up, my parents had a food aggressive golden, and our husky puppy could walk up to him when he had a bone and take it right out of his mouth, and he tolerated it. If an adult dog got nearby when he had a bone he would immediately guard it.

I know it can seem like your puppy is challenging you but someone put it very simply to me when I was frustrated with my pup at about 10 weeks of age. "He's a zygote. Who feels like they need to dominate a 13 lb 10 week old puppy?" Seriously, take a step back and think about it. It actually made me laugh to think about myself in that light. Your pup will learn and grow out of these reactions, but only if you work on building trust. You have to gently teach him the rules.

In terms of taking stuff out of his mouth, I can take anything from my pup, but honestly it never occurred to me to try and take his food right out of his mouth, for what purpose, there is a major difference between eating a meal, and a grab and gulp. He did try and guard his bowl for a while, but I followed the advice Kristina suggested and worked on building a relationship and teaching him that all good things come from me, and no matter how good you think your food is, I have something yummier to share with you, so you may as well walk away from that bowl. How about teaching him drop it, instead of just assuming he "knows" you can take whatever you want. Honestly, this kind of force will just lead to a reactive and aggressive dog with no trust for you.

He's a baby, take your time, do like Kristina said and build a relationship.

The best way is to teach the drop it command. Like others have said do a trade with a higher value treat and when the pup drops what you want, then reward. I wouldn't do this with food, but toys would be OK. Hitting a husky can make them more unwilling to cooperate and fearful which could turn to aggression in the future.

We're getting there, although I'm still contemplating on whether 2 male dogs should live together. My lab mix growls as if to say no dont do that. My puppy has shown no more signs of aggression towards my lab like he was but he still doesn't roll over and try and be friendly. My older lab is trying his best to ignore him. Earlier today I was playing with the puppy and he barked at me ( while playing) and my lab didn't like that too much, he came and growled and the puppy submitted. I think they can work it out in time.

Seems your puppy picked up on the warning from your lab very quick. That is a good sign. I think 2 males is fine but would be easier with them both fixed. Offhand I do not recall labs or huskies being same sex aggressive as some breeds like akitas or chows though every dog and pairing is unique.

While my huskies have never growled, they (especially Sabaka) have been very mouthy. They tend to talk back like a teenager. If they do not like what you are making them do or if they are confused, they may appear disrespectful. Popping these dogs most usually backfires. They are thinkers and, I know this sounds crazy, but I get more response from Sabaka by "reasoning with him" than by any show of force. As a puppy we used time-outs to punish bad behavior. Even now I will catch myself reminding him that naughty behavior elicits time-out. He cuts his eyes to the side (so as not to look at me) and woo-woos. It's talking back, in my opinion. I can't imagine being able to curb this behavior by using force. Perhaps I'm just a push-over to let this slide, but I do believe I have his complete respect. I can remove things from his mouth, demand that he drop nearly anything, command that he leave most anything alone (except for the cat...sometimes) and only allow him to eat when I release him. While I've never owned labs, we have a neighborhood full of them and, as best as I can tell, the husky's personality is so much different than the lab it's astounding.

I'll leave you with a story I heard (which is really about parenting, but I think it goes for raising dogs as well): Once there was a mom who went to a counselor in tears because her youngest son had just been convicted of a heinous crime and sentenced to prison. She cried to the counselor, "How could this have happened? I raised two sons, but they were always so very different. My oldest son attended an Ivy League college and is now a bank president, happily married and the father of two wonderful children. I always treated them exactly the same, how could everything have gone so wrong?" To which the counselor replied, "That's the problem... You treated them exactly the same..."

What you know about training dogs really does need to be "tweaked" for each breed. You will know how to tweak the training once you study all of a husky's typical character traits. I could video tape myself and Sabaka as a case study. If I get mad and yell at him, he "yells" back. If I softly give him a command, he responds much better. Husky's do not do well with physical dominance. Teach him sign language and astound all the lab owners by issuing commands without a word! Sabaka loves his hand signals! Good luck!

The two males will more than likely be fine together. They just need to figure out the packing order

I have three males living together and all get along fine. My male Dalmatian is really protective over me and gets jealous very easily! I have to watch him sometimes, but 98% of the time they all get along with no issues.

As you mentioned, with time I'm sure they will work thing's out.

I had my pup for three weeks now, she will be nine weeks monday. I had never had a problem with food aggression but today I got her a elevated feeder and she was eating and i went to adjust the feeder(move it back a little) and she growled and turned her head towards my hand. She has never done this before and I have taken food away from her before(moving the bowl to clean). Why is she doing this now, she just started this today. Please help because I dont want her growing up with this