paullovesgod
New member
Okay so this will probably be a long post, because I want to include as much detail as possible !
TL
R 9 month old border collie, trained with positive reinforcement, has developed difficult possessive tendencies over food and his humans, against dogs including our other dog, and now other humans. Not sure how to go about rectifying these issues.
I bought my mom a 9 week old blue merle border collie pup in March. (He was not a 'surprise' she fully new about and wanted him) He's approx 9 months old now, and was neutered last week.
From the start he was an exceptionally brave, rambunctious and outgoing pup. He loved people, he loved my other dog, he was interested in everything and not at all fearful. We decided we wanted to train him with positive reinforcement only, as we did not want a nervous collie.
This KIND OF worked. It worked when it was something he wanted to do-we took him to puppy agility, and he loves it, so he is 100% focused and never puts a foot wrong. Outside of this he's not great unless he can see the treat reward, and even then, half the time he doesnt see the treat as worth it . Simple commands, which he knows, like "Go to bed", "sit" "wait" "look at me", "Touch" and "leave it" are regularly disregarded and ignored. He will literally walk away when given one of these commands or just look away.
We live in a busy house, full of adults, and so he was introduced to lots of people, and was also well socialized outside of the house-taken to cafes, on buses on trains and introduced to other dogs who he usually plays very well with.
He gets 4 walks a day and the longest he spends alone is about 2 hours a day, and even then he has the company of my other dog, as my mom often takes him with her when she is working.
When we initially got him, he was food possessive. We worked hard on this-we encouraged him to leave it, to let us take the food, and then return it etc, all in a positive treat orientated way. We got him to the point were we could feed him and our other dog comfortably in the same room at the same time without issues. And he was even comfortable to leave his food unattended to go do something else. We thought the food aggression was sort of better(or at least no worse than you'd expect in dogs) However, we noticed that he HATED if we ever gave other dogs a treat on walks-this was a practice around us where dog walkers often give treats to all the dogs around them when the dogs are playing. However, we learned that it was fine if other humans gave treats, but not okay if they were HIS humans giving treats, or he'd become aggressive. We were advised by a trainer to simply not share or even distribute treats to him while other dogs were around.But over the last month he has reverted into food aggression with my other dog. This isn't what I would consider normal. He gets 2 meals a day and she gets 1. We decided to start feeding them separate under advise as, his aggression towards her while she was eating caused her to react and they were both defending their meals. My bitch, will go to her bed when he is being fed and ignore the whole thing. Simple. Except when its time for her to be fed, he goes apes4!t at her. You only have to touch HER bowl and he'll start snapping and snarling at her. She'll often be sitting on her bed waiting to be called to eat when this occurs, and we have no idea how to deal with this? He has not hurt her but we are worried about the stress its causing both of them.
Additionally he is possessive of his people. Especially of my mom. He body blocks my other dog from her. At first it
was simply thought to be puppy excitement "I too want to be petted"
We noticed it when we went out and strange dogs would request pets, even if he was off playing he'd come back to herd them away from us. If they didnt back off, he'd be ready to start a fight over this.
He does it at home too, and my female is very chill and would simply walk away. But now its EVERY time she is near my mom or me or any family, he'll shove her out of the way and curl is lip at her. This is obviously stressful for the dogs, but we don't know how to eradicate it. And the worst thing is, this possessiveness has transferred to human aggression. My dog will now defend us from guests.
My friend was staying with us, and she was excited to meet him, as she is a big fan of border collies. When she arrived he was chilling outside, so we went out to say hi and invite him inside. He greeted her (full of excitement) and then we called him in, and went up to the sitting room. I sat down next to her on the couch and he was enjoying getting petted. Now this dog is a talker-I swear he thinks he can communicate. Its an annoying habit, but we mostly just let it slide cause its just the way he is. So he starts barking, and generally talking (nothing vicious, nothing that would lead me to believe he was unhappy) He issues two barks and a whine, she asks him to come to her, and he jumps up and snaps at her face.
YIKES. Not good.
My friend is a dog person, and she is cool, but we decided that she should get some treats, and redirect his attention-we figured if she had treats and gave him commands, he would see her as a distributor of resources and if he could listen to her, he'd calm down. So she gets the treats, asks him to sit, he does, tells him to lie down, he does, asks him to wait. And then says yes, and rewards him with a treat. Perfect. He's calm, she pets him, puts the treats back and he jumps and snaps and starts to snarl at her almost immediately after the treats are gone.
This happened a week ago, since then he's done this with 3 other people, and has started to show aggression outside of the house. He had previously expressed aggression about 2 months ago to a guest, but we figured it was because that guest hugged everyone, and we never hug in our house, and we figured he may have been confused.
We have no idea the best way to go about dealing with all of these things. We have discussed getting him a muzzle, simply because we cant predict when people will call and often small children call to our house and if he is in the garden we are worried about any incident.
Update: I know this post didnt get a lot of interest, but we organised a behaviourist to come see him. She gave us some really helpful advice and we're working hard on it. He is going through a fear phase, ehich is why his behaviour seemed to change so suddenly.
His aggression is definitely getting better and his food aggression is completely gone, although he is no longer fed out of bowls, he now gets his food in kongs at different times during the day. He is still a little unpredictable with house guests, but we now know the best ways to manage it for everyone.
Fundamentally he is a very loving pup, he is just a big scaredy cat that acts out in fear
TL
R 9 month old border collie, trained with positive reinforcement, has developed difficult possessive tendencies over food and his humans, against dogs including our other dog, and now other humans. Not sure how to go about rectifying these issues. I bought my mom a 9 week old blue merle border collie pup in March. (He was not a 'surprise' she fully new about and wanted him) He's approx 9 months old now, and was neutered last week.
From the start he was an exceptionally brave, rambunctious and outgoing pup. He loved people, he loved my other dog, he was interested in everything and not at all fearful. We decided we wanted to train him with positive reinforcement only, as we did not want a nervous collie.
This KIND OF worked. It worked when it was something he wanted to do-we took him to puppy agility, and he loves it, so he is 100% focused and never puts a foot wrong. Outside of this he's not great unless he can see the treat reward, and even then, half the time he doesnt see the treat as worth it . Simple commands, which he knows, like "Go to bed", "sit" "wait" "look at me", "Touch" and "leave it" are regularly disregarded and ignored. He will literally walk away when given one of these commands or just look away.
We live in a busy house, full of adults, and so he was introduced to lots of people, and was also well socialized outside of the house-taken to cafes, on buses on trains and introduced to other dogs who he usually plays very well with.
He gets 4 walks a day and the longest he spends alone is about 2 hours a day, and even then he has the company of my other dog, as my mom often takes him with her when she is working.
When we initially got him, he was food possessive. We worked hard on this-we encouraged him to leave it, to let us take the food, and then return it etc, all in a positive treat orientated way. We got him to the point were we could feed him and our other dog comfortably in the same room at the same time without issues. And he was even comfortable to leave his food unattended to go do something else. We thought the food aggression was sort of better(or at least no worse than you'd expect in dogs) However, we noticed that he HATED if we ever gave other dogs a treat on walks-this was a practice around us where dog walkers often give treats to all the dogs around them when the dogs are playing. However, we learned that it was fine if other humans gave treats, but not okay if they were HIS humans giving treats, or he'd become aggressive. We were advised by a trainer to simply not share or even distribute treats to him while other dogs were around.But over the last month he has reverted into food aggression with my other dog. This isn't what I would consider normal. He gets 2 meals a day and she gets 1. We decided to start feeding them separate under advise as, his aggression towards her while she was eating caused her to react and they were both defending their meals. My bitch, will go to her bed when he is being fed and ignore the whole thing. Simple. Except when its time for her to be fed, he goes apes4!t at her. You only have to touch HER bowl and he'll start snapping and snarling at her. She'll often be sitting on her bed waiting to be called to eat when this occurs, and we have no idea how to deal with this? He has not hurt her but we are worried about the stress its causing both of them.
Additionally he is possessive of his people. Especially of my mom. He body blocks my other dog from her. At first it
was simply thought to be puppy excitement "I too want to be petted"
We noticed it when we went out and strange dogs would request pets, even if he was off playing he'd come back to herd them away from us. If they didnt back off, he'd be ready to start a fight over this.
He does it at home too, and my female is very chill and would simply walk away. But now its EVERY time she is near my mom or me or any family, he'll shove her out of the way and curl is lip at her. This is obviously stressful for the dogs, but we don't know how to eradicate it. And the worst thing is, this possessiveness has transferred to human aggression. My dog will now defend us from guests.
My friend was staying with us, and she was excited to meet him, as she is a big fan of border collies. When she arrived he was chilling outside, so we went out to say hi and invite him inside. He greeted her (full of excitement) and then we called him in, and went up to the sitting room. I sat down next to her on the couch and he was enjoying getting petted. Now this dog is a talker-I swear he thinks he can communicate. Its an annoying habit, but we mostly just let it slide cause its just the way he is. So he starts barking, and generally talking (nothing vicious, nothing that would lead me to believe he was unhappy) He issues two barks and a whine, she asks him to come to her, and he jumps up and snaps at her face.
YIKES. Not good.
My friend is a dog person, and she is cool, but we decided that she should get some treats, and redirect his attention-we figured if she had treats and gave him commands, he would see her as a distributor of resources and if he could listen to her, he'd calm down. So she gets the treats, asks him to sit, he does, tells him to lie down, he does, asks him to wait. And then says yes, and rewards him with a treat. Perfect. He's calm, she pets him, puts the treats back and he jumps and snaps and starts to snarl at her almost immediately after the treats are gone.
This happened a week ago, since then he's done this with 3 other people, and has started to show aggression outside of the house. He had previously expressed aggression about 2 months ago to a guest, but we figured it was because that guest hugged everyone, and we never hug in our house, and we figured he may have been confused.
We have no idea the best way to go about dealing with all of these things. We have discussed getting him a muzzle, simply because we cant predict when people will call and often small children call to our house and if he is in the garden we are worried about any incident.
Update: I know this post didnt get a lot of interest, but we organised a behaviourist to come see him. She gave us some really helpful advice and we're working hard on it. He is going through a fear phase, ehich is why his behaviour seemed to change so suddenly.
His aggression is definitely getting better and his food aggression is completely gone, although he is no longer fed out of bowls, he now gets his food in kongs at different times during the day. He is still a little unpredictable with house guests, but we now know the best ways to manage it for everyone.
Fundamentally he is a very loving pup, he is just a big scaredy cat that acts out in fear