As an emotional support dog, Marty has been great for his new owner, who suffers from PTSD. But Marty's over-reactions to sounds in the apartment hallway and dogs on the street weren't exactly calm-inducing. Here he's practising staying calm on his mat so he'll have a job to calm him when there are people in the hall.
There isn't a simple one-step fix for addressing resource guarding, and doing it properly has a few components. But hand-feeding your dog's meals, at least for a while and then occasionally, is part of every resource guarding program I assign, and in fact I recommend it for all new puppy owners too. Beau here was down for it, as you can see.
I don't often see resource guarding issues in puppies under six months of age, but when it does start this young, you want to get on it right away, for two reasons: if you're already being threatened by a baby who should be pretty agreeable to everything, it's reasonable to expect it to get worse in a mature dog if unaddressed; and when they're young, it's much easier to change their brain patterns and responses. Sunny was a great example, quickly learning to feel better about people getting close to his stuff because he started learning as a baby.
I got to work with beautiful Bruno right from his first puppy days in his new home and through his prime growing months over the winter. His loving dad and family put in so much enthusiastic training time, and now they have a terrific pet to live with for years to come. As they say, you get back what you put in!
Whisky is very uncertain about strangers, as he shows pretty clearly in this body-language lesson pic. As he's straining on the leash (sometimes even towards people on the street), you can still see how his feet spread to afford multiple push-off points for escape; his ears are pressed down and his lips are held tight against his face. And while his eyes are watching me, he has to roll them to do it because he's pointing his nose off to the side to avoid confrontation.
