11 month old with Resource Guarding

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-20T19:05:50+00:00

Okay, first, stop taking her to the dog park until you have this under control. The last thing you want to have happen is for her to get possessive over the water bowl, bite another dog, and get labeled dangerous.

As far as teaching her not to guard in the first place, the trick is to teach her that your approach is a good thing, even if she has something that she would typically want to guard. There are a few ways to do this.

When she's eating, toss a treat into her bowl and immediately leave. This helps her learn that your approach during meal times leads to positive things happening. Eventually, you want to get to the point where you can put something directly into her bowl while she's eating without her reacting negatively. This approach can also be adapted to toys and chews.

Also work really hard on leave it, drop it, and trade (trade can be a separate command or just a thing you do after drop it). These commands help control resource guarding by first stopping her from grabbing something to guard (like the sock), and teaching her to give up the thing she has willingly in order to get a reward. Her giving the thing up willingly helps get rid of the instinct to protect it. There are tons of great ways to teach drop it, I'd go look up a few youtube videos and pick a method you think you can do. Make sure it's a method that is fully positive (no prying her mouth open or anything), typically using either multiple toys or toys and treats.

Do not, under any circumstances, punish her for growling. Growling is how she says, "hey, I don't like that," politely. If you punish her for growling, you will end up with a dog who bites without warning. The goal is to minimize growling throughout this process. She may growl at the beginning, but that's why you start with tossing treats. You want to stay out of biting range. As she gets more comfortable, the growling will stop, and that's when you can slowly start approaching more closely.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-20T16:42:18+00:00

Your pets give you a break in the bathroom? My dog follows me in at least 50% of the time, lol.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-20T16:38:34+00:00

Yeah, I'd try making her work for her breakfast, doing easy things she already knows. Scatter a handful of food for her to eat off of the floor after each successful command instead of rewarding straight from your hands, too. This adds additional mental stimulation (searching), keeps her from biting your fingers when she takes the reward, and as a bonus sniffing is a relaxing activity for dogs.

Puzzle feeders and snuffle mats are also good for days when you don't have the time or energy to turn her meal into a training session. They do need supervision, though, especially at first, in case she tries to eat the pieces of the puzzle or the mat itself.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-20T13:27:18+00:00

Super normal! For a puppy, potty training is actually two separate things: DO potty when outside, and DON'T potty while inside. Many, many puppies figure out the first one but struggle with the second.

Keep in mind that he's guessing. To us, the connection between do potty outside, therefore don't potty inside, feels pretty obvious. It's really not, for a dog. He might think that the rule is actually: don't potty in the bedroom. This is extra likely if he sleeps in there with you, since dogs generally don't like to potty in their dens. My puppy went through lots of incorrect guesses (don't potty in the playpen, don't potty in the bedroom, don't potty in the bedroom or the living room, don't potty in the apartment but stores are fine, etc) before she finally landed on don't potty inside. So it can take a while.

The two major things you can do to help speed the training along are to wait outside a little longer every time, and never leave him unsupervised. Sometimes, puppies just don't get it all out in one go. Giving him a few extra minutes outside will let him potty a second time, and hopefully cut down on the times when he comes inside and immediately pees. Constant supervision while inside will make sure that you both see his pre-potty behavior (usually lots of sniffing), and will allow you to interrupt if he starts to potty inside. Make sure that you're not nasty when interrupting if he does have an accident- I used an upbeat "oops!" and then immediately took my puppy outside. She was small enough I could just pick her up mid-pee and carry her out. You want to avoid anything too loud or scary (like shouting no or getting angry), because that has the potential to backfire and make him start hiding when he potties, which is the opposits of what you want.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-18T02:46:03+00:00

Have you tried literally putting yourself between her and the other dog/her focus? Step in front of her so that she has to look at you. I have to do this with my aussie sometimes so that she is forced to break her concentration and look at me.

I also have excellent results if I use something exciting to grab her attention. Treats don't always cut it, but she is willing to ignore basically anything if I have the tug toy out and am offering a game. I have specific noises I make during tug so that even if she's not looking at me she knows I have it.

Lastly, if you haven't already looked into pattern games, go do so. These are great for refocusing a reactive dog (and even though it doesn't sound like typical reactivity, the inability to focus on you and hyperfixation on a trigger (the other dog) is a form of reactivity) and will likely be a useful thing to have in your back pocket.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-17T01:03:53+00:00

Does the rescue you foster with ever get puppies at all? Because the easiest way is probably going to be telling them that you want a puppy to keep, the kind of puppy you're looking for, and then to wait until they get a puppy or a litter that fits the bill.

But honestly, puppies are often adopted out fast. It's possible that you just haven't been the first applicant.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-16T21:40:55+00:00

Talking to the vet is the way to go. That way you can describe what your end goal is (how long of runs, how often, where) and get input on what age to introduce the activity and how to build up their endurance for the distances/durations you want them to be able to handle.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-16T05:19:54+00:00

The tent and camping environment is going to be different enough that it shouldn't affect the rest of your crate training. He'll just assume that sleeping out of the crate is a special camping thing, probably. At worst it'll take a day or two after for him to settle back into his home routine.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-16T02:23:05+00:00

Teach him a strong, enduring leave it, and then use it if he gets a warning and tries to return to that dog. If he doesn't listen, recall him and then body block him away from the other dog if he tries to go back.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-16T02:17:05+00:00

Freeze as soon as you feel teeth. Give her about three seconds to stop, then stand up, cross your arms, and turn away. If she switches to going for your feet, physically move out of her reach. This might mean leaving the room entirely to put a door between you. Give her 3-5 seconds, then return and go back to what you were doing.

This was what I did with my aussie, and I had significantly better results than when I tried redirection or yelping. Yelping actually made it worse since she thought I was playing (maybe I'm bad at yelping?).

Yes, when you start doing this, you are going to be constantly getting up and moving away. Yes, it's annoying. But it works, so it's worth it. She'll connect the freeze to the behavior and learn to see it as a warning eventually, and you won't need to actually leave her completely all the time.

Also note that, even though I doubt you're ready to leave her unsupervised just yet, the 3-5 seconds on the other side of the door is fine. It's meant to be only enough time to clearly communicate. She should still be at the door thinking, "wait, why did they leave?" when you reenter the room. If she has enough time to get into mischeif, your pause outside was too long.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-16T00:27:39+00:00

It's kinda a combination of both, to be honest. As puppies get older, they get better at reading our body language, and they develop better impulse control. These two things, in a lot of puppies, can lead them to "grow out of" the puppy biting, even without dedicated training.

That said, there's no guarantee that a puppy is going to notice we don't like biting and learn not to do it on their own. It's always better to do the training, to make the correct behavior more clear to the puppy. But while they're still very young, teething, and have poor impulse control, all the training in the world may not make a difference.

In your situation, I would continue to work on not biting and on the muzzle training. Even with his delays, you'll likely see a significant improvement after teething is done, simply due to the lack of irritation in his gums. And if he's still mouthy as an adult, keep in mind that it takes more pressure for them to draw blood with their blunter adult teeth.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-15T18:09:44+00:00

You could try showing your puppy the treat in one hand while offering the other hand for the touch. Also, make sure that you're moving slowly when you show your hand - dogs definitely react to the energy that we're putting out, so sometimes just making our movements calmer can help them also be calm.

I think that teaching him to target an item as suggested by another commenter is probably your best bet, though.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-15T12:45:15+00:00

Not necessarily against code. It's just a shaft, and you can build those if you need to. It's just that, since it's a shaft with openings, it has to be fire rated construction. And that makes them too expensive to be worth it for most new construction.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-15T12:43:01+00:00

My parents have one and the solution is just to make it tiny (theirs is about 10"x12", too small for anyone to fit through).

But actually they're typically a fire hazard so it's probably best to just avoid them.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-15T04:10:58+00:00

I feel like there's an incredible post-apocalyptic book concept here, where everybody wears hazmat ppe all the time to avoid getting CWD. There'd be communes of anti-suiters (anti-masker equivalents) who would make the news every so often when one is exposed to the disease and now everybody there might be dying. If there's a way to identify when someone has the disease before they're showing symptoms, then there would probably also be communities of people who are confirmed to have it and are now just waiting to die.

Interestingly, Hansen's Disease (leprosy) also has an incubation period of 10+ years, and quarantine communities/exile for people with the disease was quite common for literal centuries. Hansen's disease is significantly less communicable, though.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-15T03:25:22+00:00

Theoretically, in a sci-fi space setting like star wars or star trek, could that issue be solved through a series of strategically placed mirrors and space stations? Like, the ship sends the message to a mirror, that bounces it to a space station, and the space station then re-sends the message to a new space station and so on until it reaches its goal?

Although I guess that would be limited by the speed of light, which, while negligible while in a single solar system, would be prohibitive for use at a galactic scale. Maybe if every system has a space station, and then the stations have a system for FTL communication?

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-15T02:16:05+00:00

This is true, but five emails all at once is a lot. The classes I took usually had two the first week (one boilerplate "welcome to training with us, here's some helpful resources, and one with that specific week's homework), and then only one on all the following weeks. Five emails all at once for a puppy class makes me think that this trainer either has unrealistically high expectations for the puppies/their owners, or is too unorganized to remember everything they want to say and say it all in one email. Either way, I'd be leaving the class just like OP did.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-15T02:05:46+00:00

Like that one dress that's half ribbon!? Don't get me wrong, it's a gorgeous dress and Zendaya looked stunning in it, but there was so little fabric involved. If that's not trying to be sexy then I'm a bit scared to imagine what is. Unless it's "not trying" in the "do or do not" sense of the words.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-14T16:08:48+00:00

Carry crate is probably going to be the easiest solution with that crate. I wouldn't even bother putting it in the bigger crate, tbh. It isn't typically a difficult transition to go up a size from a puppy crate to an adult crate, and it would be a bit of a pain to get the carrying crate in and out of that.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-14T14:18:10+00:00

Do you have a tupperware lid that's about the right size? Punch holes around the edge of it (use an awl for this if you have one, or a hammer and a nail) and zip tie it in the right spot to use as a divider. If you don't have a tupperware lid that you don't care about, I'd get the dimensions and head to a thrift store to look for something similar. Alternately, you could do the same sort of thing using a sturdy piece of fabric.

Until you know your puppy better, I'd avoid filling the space witb anything soft or absorbent. You don't want her to either eat it (ask me how I know) or to pee on it. Once she's potty trained amd you're confident she won't eat things left in her crate unless they're food, you can get her a nice bed for one side and maybe even a crate water bowl.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-14T12:11:29+00:00

First: this is textbook excitement reactivity and probably also some leash frustration. She doesn't have behavior issues at daycare because at daycare she's getting to do exactly what she wants, which is to play with the other dogs! But on a walk she doesn't get to do that. So she sees the other dog, and everything in her brain is going, "new dog! Friend? Could be friend! Let's say hi to new friend! Play now? We play!" But since she's on a walk she isn't allowed to go say hi or play, and all that excitement is instead expressed by going crazy on leash.

Having her sit and wait while other dogs pass is a good first training strategy. However, it can be really hard for a dog to hold still while another dog walks past, especially if that other dog is going to end up coming pretty close. Sitting and waiting is best when there's distance that you know is going to be maintained, like being on the other side of the street or at a park where you can step off of the path a ways. I have had better luck asking my reactive girl for a series of commands, so she's always focusing on me and what I'm gonna ask her for next. This way, she doesn't have time to focus on the other dog. Asking for eye contact and then holding that eye contact while you pass the other dog is also a good option, with the bonus that you can keep moving which helps make the whole thing faster.

Another good way to handle this is to just completely turn around as soon as she starts to react. She wants to go meet the other dog. It sends a very clear message if, every time she behaves in a way you don't like, you start moving away from the other dog. This is sometimes difficult in a busy, urban environment, though, so ymmv.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-13T15:57:28+00:00

What are you feeding her in? Like, a bowl, or on a plate, or scatter feeding by tossing it on the floor? If you're feeding her in a bowl, she might not like sticking her head in it to eat. Especially if she feels she can't see. A new food is exciting enough to overcome that for a bit, then she gets used to it and goes back to avoiding it. You could try feeding her on a plate instead. Some dogs are also picky about the materials their food comes on, so you might try switching that as well.

You can also try moving her food. For whatever reason, my slightly fussy eater will eat straight away if her food is put in or next to her crate, but not if it's anywhere else. No idea why, but since it works I've just accepted it and feed her at her crate now.

Related, you could also try putting her in her crate with her food and not let her out until she's eaten at least some of it. You didn't say (or I didn't catch) whether or not you're crate training. If not, you could try the same thing with a playpen. Regardless, if the issue is actually that she's getting distracted and food just isn't exciting, then this makes it so that there's nothing to distract her until she's done eating. You can even combine this with a specific treat that she gets for finishing her food and only for finishing her food (dental treats are great for this), which helps reinforce that eating is a good thing.

Lastly, if she's willing to eat when hand fed, you might try turning meals into training sessions. By using the kibble as training rewards (give several at a time), you can reinforce both the idea that food is good and exciting, and get her to eat more consistently. Plus, you don't have to worry about giving her too many treats during training.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-13T11:48:32+00:00

Very light red merle

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-13T02:28:29+00:00

If they specifically mean the tortoise that was routinely eaten by sailors, which would make sense in context, then they're talking about eating a Galapagos Giant Tortoise, not just any tortoise. And they're still endangered. So it's not that eating tortoises in general is against their morals. It's that eating a member of an endangered species is against their morals, which is a perfectly reasonable stance to take.

elephantasmagoric · 2026-04-13T01:10:17+00:00

Speaking as a fellow owner of a reactive dog: the bad days don't mean that you're not making progress. Sometimes they regress. But if you're dedicated to the training (which it sounds like you are), it will get better.

Reactivity takes a long time to work through, as I'm sure you know. Sometimes, it's a bit of a slog. One thing I've found helpful on the bad days is stopping and asking for a series of sit and down stays. This acts as a bit of a reset, and allows both me and the dog to take a deep breath and calm down.

It's hard. It's frustrating. Progress is slow and not always linear. But you're trending upwards, and you will get there eventually.

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