Food agression (dog training help, Anyone?)

One more method you can try. When he's eating don't acutally take away his bowl, but send him away from it (while the other dog is still eating) by putting yourself between him and his bowl and using your legs and knees and pushing him back. What your doing is claiming that space. Make him sit and wait for a few seconds, then let him continue. The message he will get is that you as a leader are claiming that food as yours and nobody including the other dog can't have it until you, the leader say so. Also mix up his food with your hands to get your scent in it and don't let either dog near when you are preparing it. Make them sit and stay away from you while your doing that, put the food down, wait a minute and then give them the command to get it. I do that every day and it works for me. Got that info from the Dog Whisperer. It may take him some time to get it. I had a Pit rescue that was shot, starved and beaten. The most important thing I learned is do not feel sorry for the dog (hard to do) it only shows weakness in you as a leader and the dogs sense it.

You have some good answers here. It can take some time to ease your abused one's fears about going hungry again by working with him as the posters have suggested. Food behavior is important and basic. The folks who bred the dobes I used to have kept them for a while longer than some breeders did before they turned them over to us. Part of that time they spent getting the pups used to kids being around their food dishes(they used their own kids, so you knew they were serious)and the general hubbub of a household. Those dogs never did bother kids, or have food/sharing issues with their house mates. I have heard of folks who used crates for a while if the animals really got too bad with each other.

My cat came from a household where the woman kept several older, sicker animals and when he got here if I would drop a bit of cheese or something as a treat, he would reach up and bat it several feet to the side before it hit the flooor. He gradually stopped doing that, and I realized he had done that to get food with several other competitors waiting around his former missus's feet. I thought that was so cool that he had the smarts to do that.

I would have to agree with Dakota and Trooper. When I first got my pit he was food aggressive and would grawl when anyone came near his food. You have to teach yours that he has his own bowl but someone else has to eat in the same area as him. You can not allow him to dominate your home as you are the leader of the pack. I say let them play togather before feeding them and take them to their food bowls at the same time. During the time they are eating pet them, remove their bowls for a second then put it back, you can even try taking some food out of Foxeys bowl and giving it to Katie and vise versa. This will teach them how to share also. It is sooooo important to make them both understand that they have no choice but to share their living space. Best wishes!

i have an 11 month old pit bull who did they same thing when we got a puppy and what we did was every time he would start to growl we would grab his bowl and take it away for about a minute and then give it back and just keep doing it every time he growled and he finally stopped and now they actually sometimes eat out of the same bowl.

Something that I know works with dogs (we did it with both of ours) is your personally doing things to interup their eating. If he trusts you and is not going to take aggression out on you you may want to feed them seperately for awhile as you retrain him. That way Katie can also get over her new found fear of the food bowl. We used to take the food dishes away from the boys mid meal. Set it on a counter and go do a quick chore (change loads of laundry, get the mail, whatever) than about 2-3 minutes later (if they have not been begging, whining, or show some other undesired behavior) we would put the bowl back. We would also switch up where they ate. We would feed them in the kitchen for a few days, than the dinning room, front hallway. This kept them from getting dominant over an area. Also, we would occassionaly come up and start petting them and such while eating. All of these helped our dogs to not be possess of their food and also they are not agressive during feeding time. My 3 year old nephew can practicaly take their food out of the mouth while they are eating. Hope this helps some!