German shepherd pup very protective over a bone??

Question

I have recently bought a german shepherd pup. He has a lovely temperment. I have been training him the basics such as sit/come and walking on a lead. I have also been training him to wait for his food until I tell him to eat. Today I feed him and then gave him a large bone with a few scraps of meat on it. He was very defensive of it such that when i tried to give him a pet as i was leaving he was snarling at me. What do you do about this? I obviously need to nip this real quick. He is 12 weeks old.

Answer 1

Yes, you need to nip this in the bud! Take the bone away from him when he snarls and carries on. He needs to know that you are the one in control of the food and treats. Make him learn that you can touch him when he has a treat. I would hold one end of the bone and allow him to chew on the other end as long as he will let you touch him. Dominate dogs will do this with a puppy and if the puppy gets too pushy they will growl and take the bone and walk off with it. You are the dominate dog, show the puppy!

Answer 2

we had this with one of our dogs years ago. The way we taught her was to give her the bone and try to pet her. If she growled then we would tell her no and take the bone away. We did this for about 30 minutes telling her that she was good everytime she did not growl. after a while she realised that if she growled she lost the bone but if she didn't growl she kept it. This will not work on all dogs but it might be worth trying. We also make sure that we pet our puppies while they eat so that they are used to being touched when food is around. Especially important if there are children in the family.

Answer 3

The first thing you need to do is do NOT give him cow, chicken, pork, lamb, turkey, or any other animal bone, or animal hooves. they can splinter and cause damage on the way out the other end. You should also not give them raw hides, pigs ears, pigs snouts, because they can get a chunk off big enough to cause a blockage, and that is like $2,500.00 to fix.
The second thing is if you give him some food and he becomes protective of that food, growling, snapping, snarling, when you go to pet, or reach for the food, take and turn him over on his back and make him stay there until he relaxes. Then when he relaxes you can let him up, and give him back his food. I would do this a couple times a day, until you can reach into his dish without a reaction from him. Do not let him get away with this behavior, because it will only get worse. Good luck

Answer 4

Tell him who's boss, tell him to sit- give him the bone. If he snarls at you tell him "out" and take the bone away. He is definately testing your authority. As a dog sees life, whoever gets to eat first is boss, so if he's telling you that he eats first and you can't touch his food, he's saying "I want to be alfa, so feed me first." It's also worth while feeding him after you have eaten, I found this helps. My male GSD tried this on me too, they are very intelligent, but if you have trained him on other things and he respects your authority, this one shouldn't be too hard to correct.
Some other things that you could do to assert your authority-
Always make sure that you (and anyone else in the household) go through the door first, that is a sign to him that you are alfa.

Don't let him pull you down the street on the lead- if he's in front of you, that means to him that he is the leader in this situation. If he takes off in front of you, stop and pull him back to you and make him sit. When he does this, move off again- this way he learns to look to you for direction instead of taking off and doing what he wants. If he doesn't listen, he doesn't get to go anywhere.

Of course positive reinforcement is essential here. Let him know how fantastic he is when he's responding the way you want and this will also build up his confidence in you as "alfa" or "boss".

Good luck :) I love GSD puppies- sooo cute and fluffy

Answer 5

You need to get on top of this asap, especailly if you have kids around. This puppy will grow into a massive dog and I wouldn't want to take a bone off an angry dog!!
When I was training my Staffy, I allowed her to have bones, but took it off her every now and again, and if she growled she got told off. Eventually she learnt that I am the master, I will take her bone but she will get it back if she behaves. She's 5 years old now and I still take bones off her now and again, just so she doesn't forget. Maybe you should start with a rawhide bone rather than a bone with meat on it.

Answer 6

Be firm and gently take the bone from him. Roll him on his back to assert your authority. He will be a complete liability if you don't sort this out while he is very young.

He is afraid that you are taking his food when he should realise that you are the provider and pack leader. Stick at it as shepherds are fantastic companions if well trained and cared for.

Answer 7

this is food aggression. First of all...he needs to learn that if you take his food away..he will get it back eventually. I'm not a hundred percent sure how to go about this yet as i haven't looked into agression yet. But your right...this needs to be sorted quick. Having a food aggressive dog could also mean he's just posessive. Is he like this with his toys? It might be worth teaching him the leave command...so he drops what he'sgot and you give him something like a peice of chicken instead. But you have to teach him this first.

Answer 8

Hello and thanks for sharing this very serious problem. Any dog, whether large or small, at any age can develop or show signs of something called "food aggression" which is what your puppy is doing if he's growling at you while eating or chewing on a bone. Make it a point and habit to pick up the bone from your pup at ANYTIME after you give it to him and make him drop it or let you have it without any growling or defensive actions.

To do this safely, I'd suggest that you first call his name to get his attention when he has his bone and go stand over him, hands on your hips, frown on your face, and in a calm yet loud and firm voice tell him to "DROP IT!" He should lower his head and drop whatever he has in his mouth. If he doesn't, be sure to stand very close to him, put one hand on the back scruff of his neck and firmly grab the lose hair there in your hand...with your other hand simply remove the bone from his mouth while again repeating the cue "DROP IT!" Once you get the bone from him, tell him in a very upbeat, enthusiastic voice "GOOD BOY!" and pet and praise him for being a good dog and giving you the bone. After about a minute of petting and praising, casually give him back the bone and go about your business.

Also be sure to go up to him and pet him on the top of his head and back while he's eating so he gets used to you being the dominant one no matter what he's doing. Every once in a while, practice this "Drop it!" exercise and soon just by your saying it he should drop whatever he's chewing on and let you inspect it.

Do this several times each day so he gets used to the idea that you're the boss and what you say goes. You can also practice this while you play fetch or other games, too, so he knows whenever you wish to have what's in his mouth, he needs to give it up quickly and without a fuss. And you can see the real safety part of this exercise, too, in that if he is chewing on something that is very dangerous for him to (say, an electrical cord where he could kill himself or broken glass, rocks, sharp pieces of plastic, anything harmful), this will teach him to quickly drop it and save him from undergoing surgery to remove something harmful that he may have eaten or swallowed.

Keep up the practice and try and make it fun with lots of happy praise as soon as he gives up what he's chewing. It is also a good idea, too, to get him used to you touching any part of his body whenever you want to...this includes his ears, mouth, feet, and tail. You want him to know without fail that you are the boss, that you will do with him as you please, and he'll soon learn respect for you. Growling, snarling will very quickly lead to him biting and harming you or anyone else who happens to pet or play with him while he's eating or playing with toys or bones if you don't!!

Good luck & develop your own "DROP IT!" exercises for fun times and play times with your new little guy!

Answer 9

It's very important that you end this behavior now! If a child reaches for his food you don't need or want him to bite.
Flick him on the nose and TAKE the bone! If he growls at you, flick him again. Give it back to him and take it again and see he still growls. If he does, flick him again, but do it a little harder this time.
While playing with him, hold him on his back until he stops fighting you. This will tell him that you're the alpha and he has to act accordingly. Do this often as he grows and you'll keep the alpha roll.
It's also good to play in his food dish while he's trying to eat. This let's him know that it's okay for some one to do this.
I also play with the hubby's dogs ears and paws, lift their lips and open their mouths to get them used to vets and groomers handling them. They're used to it and don't think much of it when anyone else does it.

Answer 10

A dog is after all a creature and will defend its food wether it is a German Shepherd or a Jack Russell. It is not advisable to touch or tease any dog while they eat or when ill.I would suggest patting him first then give a dog a bone.