Our 4 y/o beagle just snapped at my wife's face. We discovered there was a bone hidden under my wife's pillow. Should I be concerned?

[sifaulkner]

We adopted from a shelter over a month ago a 4 year old beagle and her temper has been overall really great. We've noticed she likes to hide her bone in our house so we didn't know that she hid her bone under our pillows until today when my wife was laying down and our beagle was laying next to her and she ended up snapping at my wife's face, twice, and we noticed under the pillow my wife was laying on there was the bone hidden underneath it.

Should we be concerned about this and how would we go about correcting this behavior? She already loves being close to us and snuggling but I don't want to worry about a sudden snap unless it was only because she was protecting her bone.

 

[chopzor]

@sifaulkner This sounds like resource guarding. Try r/dogtraining

 

[stephcooper46]

@chopzor Definitely check that sub. And look at their wiki, they have a great section with everything you need to know.

But basically, you don’t ‘correct’ the behavior, you manage it. Resource guarding is very common in dogs, and it’s purely fear based so can’t really be corrected. Fear isn’t always logical. So you try to minimize access to what they can guard and don’t give them a reason to be afraid of losing the special thing. Dogs are more likely to guard when they are stressed (she is in a new home) and if they have had to guard something recently they are more likely to do it again soon after because that also stressed them out.

Basically I wouldn’t let her have the bones anymore. If you do, it needs to be supervised. So maybe only in a crate sort of deal

 

[rich4987]

@sifaulkner For the first 3 or 4 months, our rescue dog tested us occasionally by hiding “treasures” and going back for them to see if we’d taken them. It started with her after-dinner dental chew, then as she learned we were “trustworthy”, it reduced to only her yak chews.

Even now, she only has her yak chew under supervision and for a set amount of time (we trade it for something else when time’s up), and never when guests are in the house, because she gets really stressed and defensive if strangers might go near her chew.

We have taught our dog “Drop it” and “Leave it”, and trading the chew for a ball or piece of chicken works really well.

I put her guarding down to never being regularly fed in her previous environment, and having to scavenge for food, making everything precious.

Rather than trying to correct this guarding behaviour, I would limit your dog’s time with her bone, and limit access to the house so that you can see where she’s hiding her treasure. It’s not fair on you or your wife if the bone could be literally anywhere, so you need to be able to see where the dog’s hiding it. When she has a “treasure”, can you confine her to one area or room? Then keep an eye on her (without being obvious) to see where the bone is hidden. Our dog isn’t allowed on the sofas or bed without an invitation from a human, so she can’t now hide her yak chew there and it avoids situations like your pillows.

I then avoid the hiding place, or walk slowly and calmly near it, keeping my movements slow and deliberate.

When she’s been with you longer - a month isn’t long at all (have you looked at the 3/3/3 rule?) - and learns that you’re not going to “steal” her treasure, I’m sure she will settle. Sounds like she’s just testing you to see if she can trust you.

 

[sifaulkner]

@rich4987 We don't have a yard for her to freely run around in as we live in a spacious trailer. I'm not sure if we should give her a bone as it seems like she's very, very territorial with them. We may try giving her the bone but not allowing her access to the bedroom so she can at least hide it somewhere else but I just want her to trust that she won't have to lose her bone or whatever else she considers a "treasure" and feel threatened again.

We didn't know that she hid her bone there when my wife was laying her head on the pillow and our dog just snapped at her face which was weird. She's not a mean dog by any means but this has been the only time she has done this in the month we've had her.

I also just looked up that 3/3/3 rule and that's really helpful.