I've been trying to reduce the resource guarding tendencies in
Bella for about a two or three weeks with fairly good success. She occasionally growls when she has a treasured toy and i'm near but I just retrain on that when it happens and it goes away quickly.
The food situation has been much harder. I believe it stems from my cats having gotten into her food while she was crated. Now, when I take her food out she immediately goes after the cats and growls at them. She responds to corrections and is starting to lessen how far a "radius" she needs cat free before she's happy. I've been hand feeding her as much as possible and that seems to help a lot but this morning I got distracted by a show I was watching and when I turned back and told her to back up she snout punched me and growled. I immediately got up, put the food away and ignored her, was that the right way to handle that or should I have done something else to help it?

How old is Bella? Here are several things I did to prevent resource/food guarding prior to the behavior being developed.

1. Some meals I would hand feed a few pieces of kibble at a time.
2. Meals where he would eat on his own, I would pick up his bowl several times and take it away, then reward him with verbal and physical rewards if he doesn't freak out. Then I return his bowl.
3. I bought him the Kong Wobbler to help him slow down when eating. It teaches him to work for his food.
4. For toys, I would constantly have another back up toy in my hand and constantly play "trade" with him. Meaning, if he is playing/chewing on a toy, I will have a similar toy on hand, and encourage him to give up the one he has for the one I have. You can also add the "take it" and "drop it" commands during this game.

Hope this helps!

She's a year and a half old and was perfect about it till lately when it first started when she was like 6 months I nipped it in the bud. I had an ex staying with me for awhile and she would not do the things I asked her to so Bella's training went straight to hell and i'm trying to recover from it.

A really great book is "Mine" by Jean Donaldson. It is all about resource guarding; where it may stem from, and how to curve and manage the behavior. I have used many of the steps/protocols in the book with my own dog, and dogs in shelters (and seen great results!). I strongly recommend taking a look if you have a chance. -- You are able to get it for really cheap off of amazon.

Just thought I'd throw it out there.

E.

Awesome thanks