What causes Resource Guarding?

Resource Guarding in dogs is influenced by two thing, an entitled feeling of ownership, and secondly a lack of respect to you with regards to your authority or leadership. Genetically dogs are wired up to guard resources like food and sleeping areas, this is carried from their days as wild animals. Although we are 40k years away from when we first started to domesticate them, dogs still have their hard wiring!

In the wild the pack would for example eat in order of position in the pack, once a dog leaves the resource, such as a carcass, another dog would take their place and they can’t go back. So this drive a desire to hold onto things like bones, toys and food.

You should really be able to remove anything from your dog without push back, even if you don’t have a solid leave it command you still should be able to remove things without any signs of resistance.

If you do not have a solid leadership relationship with your dog it’s very likely to resist handing things over. If you are struggling with this it’s time to get some training in as this dangerous behaviour can and does lead to bites, which have the potential to not only change the humans life but also that of the dogs!