Dog BITES Its Owner! How I Fix It Quickly!

So today we have a Cocker Spaniel that has bit its owner quite badly and is displaying resource guarding that seems to be getting worse as he's getting older and I really want to be able to help him get on top of this. The main issue is his resource guarding and it's been gradually getting worse to the point where now he seems to guard toys anything high value but also his space and sometimes if he's on his bed or on the sofa even if Rachel approaches him he'll growl How bad was the bite? So I had a bruise all around here and then it didn't break the skin but it was like a bit scabbed yeah okay it was not great. A kind of one pop and done or did he try and follow up? I think because my approach was don't back off yeah or show him that I'm afraid yeah so I kind of he didn't have a house line at that time which was silly of us but I kind of just grabbed his collar and said no yeah but he then just kind of then grabbed yeah and held. Did he hold on? Okay interesting. So he's done that a couple of times to both of us it's normally worse with Rach. I was going to ask yeah. And then so we went to see someone and it was very correctional he said if you go to if he goes to two out of ten aggression we go to ten as a result of that can take a few things off him but he seems to be more reactive to everything so someone at the door someone on the street a dog. We haven't really applied the correctional techniques that we were shown wholeheartedly. I'm glad you haven't because it was brutal. It's going to just destroy the relationship. So that's kind of compulsion training it's quite old school we kind of class ourselves as balanced trainers and we kind of get lumped into that category sometimes and sometimes I think that's a little bit that's too harsh I kind of more say meet them where they're at so if it's two out of ten it's a 2.1. My philosophy on any kind of corrections I'd always like to use praise food reinforcement first there are situations when we need corrections so if he's going to harm you or another animal harm himself or cause significant damage to property resource guarding obviously harming you so I do think that there's correction to be had there but to jump from a two to a ten then you've got nothing left and it will just kind of destroy the relationship I like to follow the approach of as little as possible as quickly as possible and then return back to building the relationship and through using fair corrections actually it can further a relationship just from observing him he's quite disengaged which is very very common for a spaniel so nose and eye driven they're yeah everywhere and the energy level they're just let's go come on that makes them very quickly so I just want to bring that attention back and then rather than essentially beating resource guarding out of him I'd like to put it almost on a command and we'll put it on a leave it command. So resource guarding can take the shape of many different things and what the dog actually guards can be many different things the common one being their food or the food bowl or toys but it can be their bed it can be people it can be attention it can simply be their personal space that they guard it can be a very complicated procedure so imagine when it gets bad this is and then it's a pop yeah cool we'll fix this now when I go in my hand I'm just a little bit more cautious of getting bit which he'll feed on and I'm curious to see whether he will bite if I'm because with this now I can be a bit more assertive good so he's disengaged which is great so I've claimed it so what I love to do when it comes to resource guarding is firstly be able to tune up some engagement between myself and the dog and help ensure that the dog knows that they must look up to me for guidance and direction once I've got the dog looking up to me for guidance and direction I can then start to work on some leave it drills where I'm going to let you have the thing that you want but to be able to have that thing you must wait calmly patiently with good manners looking up to me for guidance and direction until I tell you that you can have it do that and I'm going to reward you with the thing that you want but if you don't I'm going to let you know hey that isn't acceptable and we're going to drill that and repeat that until the dog truly understands that not only does it not have any need to guard anything but to get all the things in life that they want that are worthy of guarding they simply need to look up to me for guidance and direction so all I'm going to do does he know a stay command wait wait it's okay but he kind of gets yeah so it would be fair for me to ask for him to wait yeah yeah cool so that's what I'm going to do so Walter wait I'm going to pop it on the floor in that mindset where he's at at the minute I do what I want when I want he's going to go for it but I've asked him to wait so you wait did you ever have you ever done a break with him he knows okay okay that's fine perfect it's not brilliant but it's again this will be an opportunity to drill it and that's where you're going to now be armed with wait okay and leave it so I'm going to pop this down if he breaks for it he'll get a correction as little as needed with a leave it and there'll be sit wait and then when he does that then I'm going to pick it back up throw it back down until he doesn't break when he does that yes good boy okay and then you get it I want you to have this I want you to have all the things that you're guarding but you don't get them through guarding you get them through listening and looking up to me for guidance and direction Walter wait leave it good good wait okay good boy yes oh good boy beautiful and that's all that that's it that's the drill and I'm going to get you guys doing exactly that and you're just going to do that at home so anything he guards that's how we approach it you can have this thing if you want them to have it if you want him to cuddle on the sofa cool but you don't jump up and down whenever you want sit wait okay it's just building up that concept and that's all it is so as to wait first that's it lovely wait for the eye contact you can draw it if need be lovely beautiful love it eye contact as well absolutely love it that's that's gold you're just dealing with the spanielness of a spaniel not any kind of bad behaviors so now I'm just going to give you some tricks to help manage the spanielness so you can claim that now just stand straight over it that's beautiful lovely head turn really nice look that's that's what I wanted that moment if you had a resource guardian aggressive dominant dog in a million years that wouldn't happen but if you're concerned that's how you manage it just be a bit cautious but not scared cautious just calm patient okay cool and off we go and just kind of claim that space so this is massive progress in the act of giving him something we can really control that now now if I was to go leave him with it for 10 minutes come back to expect to quickly be able to deal with this would be a mistake just give him the time claim the space do this give me the space beautiful manners that's gorgeous and that's a credit to you guys that that's where his brain goes as soon as he goes okay cool that's not mine sweet then let me know he's a little bit sideways on he's kind of it's all beautiful and that's okay good good just keep doing what you're doing drill it and you'll wake up one morning and go what happened to that nightmare dog we had it's the dream canine companion that you've put all that work into I hope that gave you some tips and tricks about resource guarding how I go about fixing it with the clients and the dogs that I work with and potentially how you could fix it at home remember resource guarding anything that's to do with dog aggression or biting you need to be very careful and if you're unsure seek help from a professional like myself but I hope you enjoyed it if you did and you want to watch more videos like this don't forget to subscribe like the video come and say hello on instagram the links will be in the description box below and we'll see you on the next video here on femory canine training