Alright, Delilah has been guarding her kong and her bed lately. Not to the point where she will nip or anything, but there is a slight growl. I don't like it, obviously, so I take the items away. At this point, she woos and woos and woos until she gets them back. We are on hour 3 of this right now and she will not stop talking. I need some suggestions, or at least some feedback that woudl let me know I'm not alone! I'm trying to use the NILIF training but jeeze she is so persistent. Good thing I am as stubborn as her.

Any tips on getting her to break this nasty little habit?

Just be mor epersistnet than she is . I know it sounds easier than it is but that´s the way.

I prefer the "make him realize he has no need to guard" methodology. There's a lot of trading, and taking only to give back shortly thereafter (assuming he behaved of course). If he feels like me taking something isn't such a bad thing because he might get something better in return or get his toy right back he has no reason to get snippy about it. It's worked for us!

That's what we did too. Lots of swapping for a higher value toy or a treat, or taking something only to give it straight back. You can make a toy seem higher value by playing with it excitedly beforehand. Also teaching a 'drop it' command.

http://toocutetokill.blogspot.com/2012/05/resource-guarding.html

We had a big problem with resource guarding as well. The link is to our blog, I didn't want to write it all out again, so feel free to go there to see how we mitigated the problem in Dalton.

Guarding from you? Or from Cato? Or both?

Trading works well- if they will trade. Odin won't trade his marrow bones for anything. So a solid drop it is in order. For the bed you can always just call them away reward them and then go sit on the bed and call them back. That's usually all it will take. It goes away.

If it's Cato... Honestly I would leave it alone. Cato should respect her space and her things. The growl is a warning that "hey it's mine, back off!" if he can't/won't understand that then he needs to learn.

rileyflorence wrote:

I prefer the "make him realize he has no need to guard" methodology. There's a lot of trading, and taking only to give back shortly thereafter (assuming he behaved of course). If he feels like me taking something isn't such a bad thing because he might get something better in return or get his toy right back he has no reason to get snippy about it. It's worked for us!

Going to add a 3rd on this. After working with Brewer on the trading approach, the only issue we still have is the guarding of marrow bones. Similar to Kristina, we either use a hard "drop it" or a plate of peanut butter.