Board & Train Charlie is one of the sweetest, most affectionate dogs I've had stay in a while but he has some serious resource guarding issues. He has bitten people over a tissue, including his owners.
His preferred MO is to steal an object from a table and then run under a table or bed with it. If you pursue and try to take it - he will get downright vicious about it.
If you tried to strongarm him or get physical about it, he has no hesitation in striking out. This is why I LOVE positive reinforcement.
We have been working very hard on giving up low value items and have managed to create a semblance of a retrieve game but it is by no means full proof yet.
He is truly a Jeckall and Hyde in this moment - one second a wiggly, wagging, open mouth guy with soft eyes and a big grin and then a hunkered down, super tense, low growling ball of unsprung defensiveness - but as soon as the object is removed it is like he blinks out of it, looks at you, wags his tail and doesn't even know what happened? There may be some neuro switching going on as the behavior seems a bit disconcerting to him as well.
I started by just being in the same area as him with this low value item then moved up to being able to be beside him with him remaining calm. I just wanted to show him I wasn't going to try and take it - I am not even looking at him at this point - just coexisting peacefully. So far so good.
When he was ready, we started with me resting my hand near him then on him. He is okay with all of this. I can touch his ears and face while he is chewing a bone and he is good with it. Open mouth, no pause or tension at all, no hunkering down... His trigger is if you apply pressure to take it - then he feels he has to react.
We had great success with getting him to leave, drop and/or give eye contact away from low-medium value items - but never a high value one such as a hearty chew, antler or rawhide. To avoid unwanted situations from arising - these things were simply kept out of reach and only given as crate rewards where he would not feel threatened.
So when I saw him heading towards me with a rawhide chew that he had taken from another dog's crate in his mouth, I was a bit concerned.
But I kicked it into Game Gear and started cheering and applauding for him and he started wagging his tail and brought me the rawhide. I sat on the floor to encourage him to come closer and what he did next surprised me to no end. He dropped it in my hand! Not only did he drop it in my hand, but I was able to get eye contact and getting him to look away from his prize has been extremely difficult.
He was charged and ready to play the game... he then retrieved this prize rawhide 10 times in a row always dropping it in my lap or in my hand! At the end of the 10 repetitions, I gave it to him to take back to his bed, and he grinned and walked away but kept looking back at me as if "what the game is over?"
AMAZING JOB CHARLIE!
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