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Hello! I’ll chime in as I am a huge fan of yours and KJ! First, I like the way you are handling resource guarding by giving her a command to move away from the item. Are you rewarding her? I like to use a high value reward when calling a dog off of a food item or toy so that they know that leaving something they value, to obey me, will benefit them in an instant and tangible way. I teach the “out” and “leave it” this way too. We won’t always be able to give a primary reward for these behaviors, however any time I can I do. This way the reward ratio is heavily in the dog’s favor; creating an association that benefits me and makes it easier to control my dogs off leash with other dogs around and items they may care about. That said, I dont allow my puppies or other dogs to play with toys together until I am sure they won’t have conflicts. If my dog is a resource guarder and does care about toys I wouldn’t add toys to play dates. Dogs can play with each other without toys and it eliminates potential conflict, especially as dogs age. I don’t want my dogs (clients or personal) to have negative experiences in group sessions, or when playing, so I encourage people to set the environment up for the least possible issues and easiest success. I try to set my classes up so that they are examples and practices for my clients to begin thinking proactively so that they don’t have issues in the future.
Her resource guarding can definitely be heightened around dogs and people that are not part of her family. Each time she has a situation where a dog takes something away from her it affirms her need to be vigilant about things in her ownership zone. It may create a progression from resource guarding to an offensive tactic to keep other people and dogs away from her. I have pretty strict rules about how we (handlers) interact with each other’s dogs during group and play times to minimize the chance of a dog feeling a need to self advocate, or advocate for their handler. This has worked well and allowed for severe aggression cases to make friends and have safe social interactions.
Something to consider: we can trade our dogs treats or another toys for something in their ownership zone…other dogs can’t.
A couple things stood out to me during the training video that might help. The first one is that when you are doing phase 2 corrections keeping the leash in your hand and being prepared to make corrections will help with his association of corrections. Minimizing making body movements, coming towards her, and having to pick up the leash will prevent your physicality becoming another conditioned punisher or part of the correction. If the leash is on the floor, or away from you, and you have to get up and go towards her, increasing your physicality towards her give her a correction can cause unwanted side effects. Since we are specifically discussing resource guarding, it will definitely benefit your relationship to have positive associations with you, moving towards her; opposed to her associating you getting up and coming towards her with punitive action or aversives. I love how you are working on different presentations like sitting in the chair, etc. that’s very helpful for confidence, I’d just pick the leash up before giving the first command.
Her toy drive is awesome! I love a drivey dog!!!!
I’d suggest getting your hands on her and petting her during the game. Being gently physical during play can help promote the positive associations with you being near her while she has something in her mouth (helpful for resource guarding and desensitization which can increase safety around baby). Allowing her to control the motion of the tug a little bit more (making it an even game) where you are controlling the movement of the tug and pulling her around and she is controlling the movement of the tug and pulling you around at an equal ratio will make it more interactive and fun for her. She is playing on a big girl tug already, that’s great!!!!! You have obviously done a fantastic job nurturing her natural talents. I love the send to go get the tug and her little puppy prance when she gets it. Her presentation is on point!
I have seen dogs get injured being picked up by the tug (and after Storm I’m super paranoid…).so maybe that’s something to maybe be cautious of.
She obviously loves you. She is engaged and is working with intention and that is all because of your care and application of the training pyramid.
Thank you for sharing these videos and being so generous with your training sessions… it’s like being able to apprentice for you! Watching you train and being able to think about all of this and chatting it out helps me so much! You are amazing!
