Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have an 8 year old shepherd/yellow lab mix and a eight month old black lab puppy.

I adopted the older dog and have had him for a little over a year. When I got the lab puppy (she was about 12 weeks old), he became food protective. He grwols at her to keep her away from his bowl. He will "claim" her bowl of food as well. He burys food all the time now. He will even sometimes "guard" food that he doesn't even want.

The puppy has responded by letting him eat her food, or she will grab her bowl and drag it away.

I found that placing the food bowls far apart sometimes helps. If I stay with them during feeding time, he will stay away from her bowl.

Neither one of them is food aggressive around people. You can pull food from their mouths and they won't care.

Any suggestions on how to solve this?

I always try to feed my guys in Seperate Rooms

Feed dogs separately! Don't wait to see if there will be a problem first--of course, that ship has sailed for your dogs, since they already do. But this is SO common, and once instinct--a major survival instinct in dogs--has been triggered by food competition with another dog, that's it. Done deal. They have to be fed separately.

This problem can spread to humans approaching the dishes, too, if you're not careful. The article Food Guarding--in alphabetical order by that title--is found in the Canine Behavior Series at the link below my signature. Use the techniques in the article to prevent either dog from starting to guard food from humans.

And feed them separately with someone supervising--or in completely separate rooms with a closed door between. Don't put dogs in a position of having any reason to guard their food from another dog, or to try and take another dog's food. Just totally prevent it.
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Kathy Diamond Davis, author, "Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others," 2nd edition, and the free Canine Behavior Series articles at http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=SRC&S=1&SourceID=47