Resource Guarding has been on my mind lately. Social media offers opportunities for the public to interact with dog trainers of all levels of expertise on this topic and more. There’s been lots of talk about the need to identify and curb resource guarding tendencies in puppyhood and the influences of genetics and experience. People even discuss whether or not to deploy the Trading Protocol to treat problems with resource guarding. Resource guarding can be stress-induced, too, but there’s little talk about that.
Do you see tendencies toward resource guarding in your dog? Resource guarding can be the foundation of someone being bitten by a dog, so it’s important to understand and handle it well. Let’s define it so we are all on the same page.
What is Resource Guarding?
Dogs may guard, or protect from others having access to, food and non-food items, places like beds and particular spots on the couch, people and non-humans, and even areas like a room, kennel, or the back yard. As with any behavior, genetic makeup plays a role as does a dog’s experience. A dog may guard things from other dogs, humans, or even other species. Guarding from humans is the main problem area. Guarding from other non-humans is likely based in stressful relationships between the animals in a home.
How Does Resource Guarding Begin?
All behaviors are influenced both by nature and nurture. Nature is of course, the dog’s genetics. Nurture is a compilation of everything a dog has learned throughout his life. Remember that dogs learn to repeat operant behaviors that work for them and to express emotions that have been conditioned.
Puppyhood
Puppies are little bundles of explorative, no-manners curiosity. In the best situations, their doggie moms teach them the fundamentals of how to behave politely enough that other dogs don’t take exception to their rudeness.
Once puppies leave the litter, they continue to experiment with behaviors to see what might work for them. They no longer have the easily understandable input they once got from their mom and siblings. If they are lucky, they land in a home where a human understands dog behavior and training. That new human parent continues teaching them the wherewithal of being a dog in a human world. We hope that humans teach in ways that the puppy can easily understand.
Genetics Behind Resource Guarding
Genetic tendencies contribute to the likelihood of resource guarding as well as the intensity of the behavior. Puppies of breeds that have been developed for hundreds of generations to protect their territory and to attack those who attempt to access their stuff have the genetics to guard. Some breeds have been developed to bite with the force to maim or kill. Others have been bred to look formidable – to impress people to stop trying, simply through the dog’s size, intensity, and possibilities.
Experience with Resource Guarding in the Litter
Experience is the area in which human dog-parents have the most influence. Most puppies, in their experimental bumbling through youth, will guard things from the other puppies in the litter. This behavior contributes to their acquisition of appropriate body language skills.
At some point, a puppy may try guarding something from his mom. If she’s a skilled mom, she will stop that immediately, without hurting the puppy, and the puppy will gain resilience as well as information about which behaviors should be repeated and which should not.
A puppy is likely to attempt guarding something from a human if he is being raised in a human home. The outcome of that behavior choice influences whether the behavior will be repeated. Will the human ignore it? Yell at or punish the puppy in some way? Or will the human take the opportunity to teach the puppy that there’s a better way to handle things?
Resource Guarding in the “Forever” Home
Whether a dog finds his home as a young pup or as an adult, he brings with him everything he’s learned so far along with his genetic makeup. The transitional moment between where he came from and where he ends up is key in his learning how to live successfully in his forever home. Yes, your influence begins having an effect on your new dog’s behavior from the very moment you meet him. The ways you handle him start building your future together.
A Tiny Spaniel Learns to Bite
I have always recommended trading dogs treats for items they have, as described in my article, The Trading Protocol. The possibilities are immense, from safety for human and dog to teaching a useful and fun retrieve. Some people like to simply grab stuff from dogs’ mouths in an attempt to “show them who’s boss.” Many years ago, I was consulting with a rescue group when the events in the following story occurred. I will never forget it.
How a Rescue Dog Learned Resource Guarding
A rescue volunteer described picking up a friendly little spaniel mix, driving the dog from Galveston up to midtown Houston, a fairly long drive. She had brought along a bully stick for the dog to chew on the drive – excellent! This could have done a great job of associating the travel experience with something good, helping to reduce the dog’s stress from being in a shelter and transitioning to a new home. She put the dog on the passenger seat of her car, like so many people do, which was not the safest choice but allowed the events to unfold.
As the rescue volunteer drove, the dog chewed on the bully stick. The volunteer told me that she periodically grabbed the stick from the dog, held it for several seconds while driving, and then gave it back. Her thought was that the dog would learn that it was OK to have a human grab something from her mouth. That’s not what the dog learned. The dog learned to bite the volunteer’s hand when she reached for the bully stick. The little spaniel didn’t even make it to her foster home before being provoked to bite someone. This did not need to happen.
Development of Resource Guarding
We can’t know what the spaniel mix had previously learned. We don’t know the dog’s genetics. As a mixed breed dog, there may have been little to no actual selection of the parents. If they were selected at all, they may not have been selected for temperament qualities; we will never know.
We do know, from an accumulation of evidence, that it’s likely this dog was experiencing a high level of stress. She had been living at a shelter and had been picked up by a rescue volunteer, someone she had never met before. I had no information about any observations of the dog’s body language indicating her stress level, but I feel confident that she was under stress, based on the shelter and rescue transfer.
Stress-induced Resource Guarding
Resource guarding can be induced via stress. This is why the use of the artificial hand to “temperament test” dogs in shelters has been largely abandoned. There are certainly exceptions in which highly trained behavior professionals may use the hand, but it should not be used in the way we see so often online – to snatch away a food bowl while a dog is eating. “Testing” dogs has been shown to be ineffective at best. At worst, it can quickly create behaviors that no one wants to see in an adoptable pet.
Trigger-stacking
In shelters, most dogs are stressed at some level, simply because kennel life is not what they are accustomed to and shelter life is admittedly not the best environment for dogs at all. You may be familiar with the concept of trigger-stacking, meaning exposure to multiple stressors at once or following each other closely, without time or resources for coping with all of them. Explore trigger-stacking in this article about bringing a new dog into your home with a linked video describing its effects.
In any new home, dogs are faced with triggers, or stressors. In a shelter, as you know, there are even more triggers. A dog is required to be on constant alert for threats, particularly if the shelter does not actively engage in stress reduction protocols like enrichment and low-stress handling.
Interruption of Coping May Lead to Resource Guarding
We cannot know everything that is influencing a dog’s behavior at any given time. However, the more we learn about dog behavior, the better our observation skills and our interpretation of body language and other behaviors become.
Self-soothing can take many forms for dogs. Some dogs lick, others chew, some even lick or chew on their own feet or other body parts, among other behaviors. If we pay attention to what a dog tends to do under stress, we can offer him opportunities to safely and productively carry out his needs while working toward reducing his stress level. For dogs who lick or chew, it’s easy enough to offer lickable and chewable resources for enrichment. When we do, it is imperative to practice good handling skills when giving and removing these resources to prevent the development of stress-induced resource guarding.
Safety First: Giving a Resource to a Dog
Keeping one’s hands away from dogs’ mouths is always key. Watch a dog’s body language throughout the process of handing him something, keeping your hands on the far side of the item from his mouth. A shelter dog who is likely experiencing trigger-stacking may be hyper-alert and change behaviors quickly. Even your own dog, especially if he’s new to your home, may be dealing with the stack of triggers provided by other pets, a new routine, unusual events around the house, and his own ability to use coping skills that work for you as well as himself.
I heard about a shelter incident recently in which a staff member was pushing a peanut-butter loaded frisbee under a kennel gate for a dog. This is a commonly used and often highly desirable enrichment item. The frisbee got caught on the gate and the employee tried to forcefully push it through with their foot.
The stressed shelter dog was already understandably excited to receive the yummy resource. When the noises and activity of pushing the frisbee through began, the dog quickly went over-threshold, losing her ability to control herself well. She bit the employee’s foot.
This case shows the need for all interactions with dogs to be planned and carried out with care, minimizing errors that can lead to events causing problems for humans and dogs. This dog now has a bite history, changing everything for her future. The employee was not physically injured but most likely has some psychological damage. The incident was 100% preventable.
Getting a Resource Away from a Dog
Trading is, by far, the safest way to get an item back from a dog. Preventing a bite is essential, and doing so now helps prevent future bites as it provides a learning experience for the dog. (Probably for the human, too!) As described in my article “The Trading Protocol,” trading is also a great beginning for a fun or even formal retrieve behavior. This is why I maintain that it’s an important learning tool for puppies and even for adult dogs who didn’t have a chance to learn it as pups.
Fielding Complaints About Trading
There are those on social media who say that a trading protocol can lead to a game where the dog brings things to the owner to get treats. It certainly can, and that’s OK with me. We teach dogs all sorts of polite and functional ways to ask for things they want, and bringing things can be one of them. Others include one bark to let Mom know a dog wants to come inside, going to the correct eating spot to get dinner, resting a chin on someone’s lap to get petting, and more.
Use Trading to Build Behaviors
The trading protocol should not stand alone. It should be part of a training program that helps dogs develop a repertoire of acceptable, functional behaviors that allow communication between themselves and the humans in their homes.
As we continue from trading toward a retrieve behavior, we can put picking up items and delivering them on cue, minimizing the number and selection of things a dog brings. We can also add many other behaviors to the repertoire, providing ourselves with opportunities to encourage the dog to stop retrieving for now and take up some other activity. We can teach him other types of alerts to let us know what he wants, and also teach him that sometimes, he can’t actually have the things he wants right at that moment.
The value of The Trading Protocol lies in its ability to replace the tendency to guard with a different, yet still highly functional behavior for the dog to carry out. It deals with both operant behavior and emotional response.
What if You “Have to?”
There are those who counter the benefits of trading with examples of emergency situations in which they “have to” immediately get something from a dog’s mouth.
First, as with any behavior, you always have the choice to tackle and manhandle a dog to do what you feel you need to do. It’s only fair to point out that the dog will continue learning throughout this procedure, so you should keep that in mind and minimize the negativity of the situation if you choose to carry it out.
Second, if you are ever in a situation in which you need to manhandle a dog, I hope you make a serious mental note to follow that incident with the necessary training to prevent your need to use it in the future.
Trigger-stacking in a Self-Soothing Situation
Imagine a situation in which a dog is overloaded with stress and trying to soothe himself by rolling a tennis ball around in his mouth, chewing a toy, or licking something. He’s doing the best he can to cope with his stress, and someone comes along and tries to take the one thing that might be helping him a little.
If the dog growls as a person reaches for the item, is he resource guarding? Or is he simply experiencing just one more trigger that pushes him over-threshold? Like so many other things, it’s hard to know in that moment. But if we look closer, we can learn what might be going on with him.
That’s where our big, 3-pound human brain becomes very useful. We can analyze the many influences in this situation, after considering the data before us. The dog’s body language and the behaviors that came before this guarding incident play important roles. Also, what do we know about the dog’s lifestyle?
If we don’t make the mistake of deciding that grabbing that item right now is the most important thing in the world, we can devise a plan to ensure things work out in the best way for ourselves and the dog.
Wilbur, a “Resource Guarder”
Stress-induced resource guarding is common in shelters and foster homes, and it often completely disappears once other behaviors are developed.
I knew a shelter dog recently – we’ll call him Wilbur (not his real name.) He would quickly grab a tennis ball from the floor, anywhere he saw one, and hold it in his mouth. He rolled it around in his mouth and would carry the ball along as we worked with him on leash skills for the shelter volunteers. Very cute, but he was reticent to trade the ball for a treat. Resource guarding behaviors were easy to see.
Wilbur and The Trading Protocol
Offering Wilbur a treat at his nose might make him drop the ball, but he placed it under his face and toward his front legs, grabbing it again very quickly once he swallowed the treat. I dropped a few treats on the floor to his left or right in a series of attempts to allow me to grab the ball while his head was turned. This ended up working, but it took a few tries because Wilbur really wanted to keep his ball!
Although we went through this process several times, Wilbur did not growl at me or stiffen his body. He did show body language indicating he was stressed: highly wrinkled forehead, some tension around his eyes and mouth, but lots of friendly gestures at the same time. He happily walked on a leash and had a great interaction style with humans – no jumping up, happily focused on the person walking with him, keeping the leash loose while getting treats for doing so.
Wilbur was Self-soothing
Holding onto a tennis ball served as yet another indication of his stress level. It became clear to me that he was using the ball to soothe himself when he felt extra-stressed. That’s important information, letting me know that it’s likely he wasn’t guarding the ball as a well-learned routine or with the intent for real aggression.
Once, while taking Wilbur to a greeting room to meet a potential adopter, he grabbed a plush toy from a basketful he noticed on the floor on the way there. I thought we were going to have to go through an extensive trading event, but he mouthed the toy for several steps and then dropped it. This told me that he could release a toy and led me to believe further in the idea that he was using the tennis balls to self-soothe, keeping his stress level lower than it might have been.
Nonetheless, I heard some of the shelter staff calling Wilbur a “resource guarder.” I’m not sure how this label affected their interaction and handling of him, but I’ve found that labeling dogs can limit the ability to help them change their behavior.
Labeling
Anytime we put a name on something, we humans are putting it “in a box.” We categorize things to help us understand them. Knowing what we’re dealing with can help us solve problems. But putting a label on something can also limit that category to always being that way.
Rather than labeling dogs, I recommend identifying the behavior that is problematic and creating a plan to change that behavior. No, we cannot always reach the goal of a dog behaving perfectly “normally” in that area, but we can sure get closer to it than we are when we begin.
My Dog, Albert
Albert is an English Springer Spaniel who shows some of the behaviors that can lead to resource guarding. He likes to take toys to a bed. This tendency has been evident since he came to live with us at the age of 5 months. I taught him to trade, and then to voluntarily give me anything he has in his mouth, and he’s become a reliable retriever. He learned all the foundational skills I talk about in this blog and we use them all the time. We’ve built them into groups of advanced behaviors.
Albert is good at travelling, meeting people and dogs, walking on a leash, and so much more. I didn’t label him as a resource guarder, as an anxious dog (although he has that tendency, too) or as hyperactive (he’s not, but one might think he is at times!) I simply observed what behaviors we were starting with and built the behaviors I wanted to see from that point.
The Dog You’re Dreaming Of
You don’t have to limit yourself or your dog to the behaviors you see today. The two of you can be the team you are dreaming of. You’ve already started building your future; look at your plan, modify it, and train your dog. If your dog shows tendencies toward resource guarding, take a good hard look and determine what’s going on under the surface and make a plan to change that.
Try It!
Right now, today, offer your dog a trade when he has something in his mouth, as described in The Trading Protocol article. Just like the article tells you, if it’s a toy or something your dog is allowed to chew or play with, just give it back after you give him the treat and take a dramatic look at the item! Your dog will learn that it’s safe, functional, and fun to give you things. You won’t have to worry that you can’t get something back from him if you need to.
Use the resources you see on this website and the associated YouTube channel. If you want help and you’re ready to take on the challenge, I’m here to coach you along the sometimes rocky path of modifying your dog’s behavior.
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