How to manage resource guarding among your pets
So many things to guard, so little time. Actually, most of our dogs and cats have plenty of time to plan and they’re observant by nature.
My work-at-home desk is conveniently located by the pet door to the backyard. The door is large enough to accommodate my 55-pound dog Baloo, but not his bully stick held crosswise. So recently, when Baloo wanted to go outside and didn’t want to leave his stick to the tender mercies of his brothers, he tried to walk through the door, but the stick was too long. He put the stick down and poked his head out.
Mind you, the stakes were high as Dice, the youngest dog, is a keen observer. Finally, Baloo risked setting the stick down right by the door, went through and once outside, put his head back in to grab the stick.
Good plan, but fraught with peril. Sure enough, Dice pounced on the stick as Baloo’s head popped back through the door to retrieve it. After all, an abandoned stick is fair game. Baloo, however, thought it was clearly still in play. Tension mounted. Baloo growled at Dice and finally recovered his stick, jerked it outside and all lived to tell the tale.
Resource guarding is a natural behavior. Our pets guard space, people, toys, food, doorways, chewies, crates, beds and even other animals. The more animals or the smaller the space, the more tension can accumulate.
As an animal guardian, it’s relatively easy to manage the obvious stuff. What really causes problems is either an extreme guarder or one that guards mysterious objects (used Kleenex) or objects that aren’t immediately visible (string cheese under the chair).
I could have broken up the drama by the dog door, but I was both highly entertained (the bar isn’t that high these days!) and curious to watch the problem-solving.
Planning, foresight and management are the keys to a peaceful coexistence. If you have multiple dogs, feeding each dog in their crate eliminates problems
while providing positive reinforcement for crating. It might be enough to feed the most, um, motivated guarder in its crate. My cats are fed on a shelf above the laundry area.
It’s important that each animal feels safe and relaxed while they eat. Tensions
never develop if one is sufficiently proactive.
You can either dispense highly valued chewies to individual dogs while each is on its bed or you can go to the opposite extreme of flooding. In a flooding strategy, there are so many chews available that they
aren’t considered a scarce resource.
You can also use crates, tie downs and obedience behaviors for people guarding. Sometimes it takes professional help to sort out the true culprit. The “spoon” as we say is the one that stirs it up. In my pack, it’s Dice. I’ve observed him lie (and stare) as close as tolerated to a dog with a chew while there is a perfectly good available chew 2 feet away. This is a situation that I will address.
The dog that growls isn’t always the bad guy and you don’t want to punish valid communication. Otherwise, you risk losing the warning and increasing the pressure.
All in all, resource guarding issues are usually relatively easy to solve compared to other behavior problems.
Do you have a pet (or two) that could use a little help with resource guarding? Give Marin Humane a call and we’ll help bring harmony to your home.
Dawn Kovell is the director of behavior and training for
Marin Humane which contributes Tails of Marin articles and welcomes animal- related questions about the animals in our community.
Go to marinhumane.org, Twitter.com/ marinhumane, or email lbloch@marinhumane. org.