A post from Victoria Stilwell via Facebook:

Quote :

I am responsible for the majority of posts on my fan page because it’s important to me that I connect with you all as much as possible and discuss important issues as well as giving you the latest info. Very occasionally if I am traveling, which I have been doing a lot of lately, my admin team puts out posts or puts up videos that I have done. Yesterday one of my new videos on teaching impulse control around a dog’s food bowl was posted and shared widely. The video itself is great, but the explanation that was given by my team was incorrect. This video illustrates impulse control and is NOT a way to train a dog that is already guarding his food! I teach impulse control like this to every puppy and adult dog to PREVENT resource guarding issues from ever happening and as a FINAL part of a teaching plan that I use for dogs that were once resource guarders.
Only when I have gone through a whole plan and the dog is NO LONGER guarding his food or food bowl, will I then teach him this valuable lesson in impulse control. The dog that has previously been resource guarding has to become confident around his food bowl before this impulse control training can be done. Remember, treating a resource guarder successfully is NOT about battling with your dog and trying to make your dog submissive towards you, as we all saw in the dreadful video that was posted a week or so ago showing a trainer putting a massive amount of stress and pressure on an already highly insecure resource guarding dog, that had no choice but to bite him.
Remember – EACH TIME A DOG BITES IT IS A FAILURE – not just for the trainer, but for the dog and every person that comes in contact with that dog from then on, because now, not only has trust been broken and an insecure dog made even more insecure by a trainer’s misunderstanding and attempt to make that dog submissive, but the biting behavior is more deeply ingrained and therefore more resistant to being changed. Treating resource guarding successfully is all about using NON CONFRONTATIONAL methods to teach a dog to be so confident with your presence around his bowl and food that he doesn’t feel the need to guard it any more.
I have successfully treated very dangerous resource guarders using positive methods – it is much safer and more effective. DOMINANCE TECHNIQUES ARE DANGEROUS AND SHOULD NOT BE USED ON ANY DOG FOR ANY REASON, ESPECIALLY WITH AGGRESSIVE ‘RED ZONE’ DOGS. Please share this explanation and video far and wide again so that everyone gets the right information. Many thanks.

Video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ3Kbf0iDss

In short: Making feeding time a stressful situation for your dog is taking things in the OPPOSITE direction. Help your dog trust you and feel confident is the best way to address such issues. By forcing the dog to show certain behaviors or by punishing those behaviors we find unacceptable we are really only making it worse by creating a walking biting time bomb that WILL react, and their reaction will be far far worse when pushed enough.

I wish there was a "like" option for this post.

Megan, there is. You see the plus and minus signs in the top right of the post? They are the equivalent of 'like' and 'dislike' (there is a forum policy on using them in a sticky somewhere). If you click the plus sign, you make a green line appear You can see that you have 26 treats, and this is how you got them

(As for me, I seem to get minuses and pluses on the same posts, so they mostly cancel each other out).

Apologies if I misunderstood and you knew all this already, but I was on the forum ages before I realized.

I like what Victoria Stilwell says about bites there. It's a complete contrast to the clip from that other trainer's show that was doing the rounds a couple of weeks ago.

This will be a great thread to send newbies to when they post food issues! Much easier having them watch a video vs trying to explain it. I have my dogs practice this behavior at meal time and it really does help! I thought it was funny she kept saying "uh oh" every time the dog tried to go for the food to soon.

I am just commenting on this so I can find it when I get home from work and watch the youtube video.