Aggression with Bone

[Carla]

Hi, I have adopted a 4 year old Greyhound 2 months ago, his name is Kiko. He has settled in, he is wonderful with visitors, kids. I can take his food bowl away anytime. However, I feed him raw bones and he gets very possessive of it. The other day he grawl at me, I didn't accept it and he ended up nipping my arm (it bruised my arm badly). Can you please advice if this is serious, should I accept that he is protective of his bones, or should I teach him to give his bone to me if I ask.

[MaxHollyNoah]

Hi Carla,

Kiko seems to be nice dog but he has shown resource guarding aggression with his bone.

I strongly recommend you work on this problem and I don't think you should let Kiko have his bone unless he lets you take it away no matter what circumstance is.

The good thing is Kiko lets you take his food bowl without any problem so you should be able to train him not to be protective about bones either, at least against YOU. I would not give him a bone when other people, especially kids, are around since he has shown aggression.

It seems bones are very special for Kiko so I would start with something less special but still more valuable than regular dog food. How does he react with lawhide or hooves? How about jerkies?

Has he learned "Drop it" or "Leave it"? If not, you should start train him those commands:

Give him a toy (or lawhide chew, etc.) and when he takes it, offer him a piece of very good treat saying "Drop it". When he drops the toy/chew, give him the treat. You will repeat it a dozen times every single day until he masters the command and he understands the rule of "exchanging what he has in his mouth with a piece of treat". By doing this, he will build trust on you. He will learn that he doesn't needs to be protective against you as well as you are the one who controls all the goodies.

Then, you will make his possession more and more special but do it gradually and you need to feel comfortable with him by the time you re-introduce bones. He should have learned that he needs to listen to and obey your command no matter how much he wants to keep the bone.

I have 3 dogs and I only give one bone at a time. They need to wait for his/her turn nicely while the other one is eating. I time it and tell the dog to "Drop it" and I pick it up and give it to the next dog. After a few minutes, I take the bone away from that dog by saying "Drop it". They all drop the bone nicely because they all know THEY WILL GET HIS/HER TURN. This is a trust building excercise. I am sure you will be able to do this if you work on the issue patiently and consistently.

Good luck