Don’t. Touch. My. Stuff.
My husband Rob and his brother had a childhood saying: All Mine, None Yours.
One day it showed up at our house in the form of an insulated beer holder.
Sharing is something we humans have to learn to do as young children, and if you’re like me, you might have childhood memories of guarding a resource:
Seat saved. And the space it’s on.
Share those fries? Oh, heck no. Watch this toddler guarding french fries, even though there are plenty of them.
Flipping out when a sibling wears your favorite shirt, even though you weren’t planning to wear it.
All mine. None yours. (As illustrated above in a Yeti beer cozy.)
Any of these sound familiar? These are ways we humans guard our resources from each other.
Like us, it’s normal for our dogs to guard a variety of objects, people, and situations from other dogs — and from us, their beloved people.
The difference is that our dogs have lots of pointy-sharp teeth, which are scary to see in action, whether they’re directed toward another dog or us.
What is guarding?
Resource guarding is a genetically-driven behavior trait present in all living beings. Having access to stuff necessary for our survival (or that we think is necessary for our survival) is how we grow up, survive to reproductive age, and then create the next generation.
Our dogs aren’t that far evolved from their time as proto-dogs (roughly 15,000 - 40,000 years ago) and are still running the software that helped them survive pre-domestication in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
I did a quick Internet search of resource guarding in dogs and very few mention that this is actually a fear-based behavior. (Yet another reason I don’t recommend looking up canine behavior issues online — inaccuracies poureth forth from Google.) Fear is another hardwired behavior that is necessary for the survival of all species.
Pro trainers know that a dog who guards is fearful and upset.
They are afraid of losing access to a resource they consider necessary to their survival. (Much like the toddler above guarding those fries.)
They sometimes have other fear-based issues, such as disliking being handled or touched (not all dogs enjoy being pet!), fear of strangers, spookiness around sudden noises, or proximity sensitivities (flinching when people get near).
What resource guarding is not
Your dog isn’t growling at you because they're trying to be the dominant being in the house. They genuinely think they will die if they don’t have access to whatever they're protecting.
Your dog isn’t guarding because they lack manners training, or because you’ve “spoiled” them, or because they don’t have enough stuff.
In fact, providing more stuff — beds, toys, access to food — won’t cure a guarder.
Your dog isn’t guarding because it’s part of her breed. My teacher, Jean Donaldson, founder of The Academy for Dog Trainers, calls it “an equal opportunity behavior problem.” It crops up in puppies and adult dogs, rescues and purebreds, in dogs who had hardscrabble beginnings and those who’ve always lived a perfectly lovely, safe, and cozy life.
And yes, it can be scary for us.
What does resource guarding look like?
A dog who resource guards can engage in any combination of these behaviors:
Freezing over a bowl, or eating faster, when someone approaches their food bowl
Hard staring at, or chasing another dog or person away from dropped food or toys on the floor
Snarling or snapping when their special resting spot is approached
Taking objects away from other dogs
Lunging and snapping when their special person is approached, either in the house or on a leashed walk
It’s worth noting that in this situation, the dog is not acting to protect the person. The dog is acting to protect herself against the possible loss of that person as a precious resource to them
Stealing nonfood items such as socks and tissues and guarding them from being taken away
Growling at one person in a certain context, such as a household partner approaching the bed or the sofa while the dog’s in residence there with the other partner
All creatures have conflicts, including our dogs.
While humans may raise their voices with each other, our dogs use their communication tools with each other: body language such as hard stares, snarls, barks, lunges, snaps, and sometimes bites. They also use this body language with us.
My own dogs have had some noisy scraps over the years, almost always in stressful or disruptive situations such as when we were packing to move house or when Daisy was super-hungry from being on a prescription steroid. If Petey got anywhere near her food bowl (he routinely checks it for leftovers after she eats) or even near the closet where we store the big bin of food, she’d ferociously guard it. And he’d snark back.
Our dog Daisy will regularly take Nylabones away from Petey and hoard them near her. Does she chew them? Oh heck no. She even has her tasty stuffed Kong nearby to chew on.
Petey is usually a good sport and allows it. He will rarely give her a hard stare or a small snarl, which she generally will respect and back off from.
Bottom line: Resource guarding is based in the fear of your dog losing access to whatever they consider a precious resource. Most dogs who guard will guard in more than one way.
What to look out for
Typically, dog-dog spats will be what we call non-injurious, meaning injuries (if any) don’t require medical attention. If the spats become more frequent or more injurious (or if they’re just freaking you out!), it’s time to call in a credentialed, rewards-based pro.
Dogs have exquisite control over their jaws, and their jaws can crush bone. A dog who snaps at a person didn’t “miss.” They’re choosing to not use their full jaw strength but are delivering a warning to that person, which should be respected. When people tell me a bite “came out of nowhere” that’s rarely the case. More often, the dog’s warnings weren’t heeded and they escalated from a freeze to a growl to a snap to a bite out of mounting fear and frustration.
Sometimes, a dog who is yelled at or punished by the guardian for growling will move straight to biting next time.
Contact a credentialed, rewards-based dog trainer. You can’t fix this yourself. Don’t have one near you? Guarding is a great candidate for online training.
Can you stop guarding?
Resource-guarding prevention is the best strategy, starting in puppyhood. A colleague tells the story of clients who thought it was adorable when they put their hands in their tiny Rottweiler puppy’s food bowl and he growled at them. (Please, never do this. Let your dog eat in peace.)
Eight months and 100 pounds later, it wasn’t so cute. Helping the dog get over that took a lot of work to change his feelings about having his bowl approached.
Resource guarding prevention can only be done with puppies and dogs who aren’t already guarding so I won’t discuss that training method here, just in case your dog does indeed guard. (Grab a free 15 minute session with me if you think you have a guarder.)
Leroy, a sweet as pie client of mine, guarded his special person from a new member of the household.
Over the course of our work together we taught him that the approach of the new person predicted amazing things for him — namely, cheese and chicken — and thus the approach became a Very Good Thing to happen.
Leroy’s training method is known as counter-conditioning and most dogs will respond well to it. It can be a painstaking process and needs a pro’s help, as it’s easy to do it incorrectly and make things much worse, and very unsafe.
Three things you can do right now
Our dogs communicate with us in the same way they communicate with each other. Problem is, most people don’t notice or understand their dog’s subtle (pre-growl, lunge, snap or bite) body language.
Start by observing your own dog’s particular body language. How do they look when they’re relaxed, happy, exploring, alert, curious, stressed, and so on?
Track instances of guarding behavior, noting:
Time of day
Who was involved (which people, dogs, cats, etc.)
Where was the dog and what was she doing? (Eating, resting on her bed, chewing a bone, suddenly awoken, etc.)
Details: what happened? (Person walked by, 3’ away, from the dog chewing a bone, dog snapped at their ankles; person went to pick up empty food bowl and dog ran over to it and growled, and so on)
Any extenuating circumstances: is your dog on medication, recovering from an injury, is there household tumult or stress, thunderstorms or noisy garbage trucks outside, etc.