{"id":1442,"date":"2012-05-11T09:09:32","date_gmt":"2012-05-11T16:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vetlocator.com\/dailypaws\/?p=1442"},"modified":"2012-05-12T19:24:50","modified_gmt":"2012-05-13T02:24:50","slug":"dog-food-aggression-or-canine-possession-aggression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vetlocator.com\/dailypaws\/2012\/05\/dog-food-aggression-or-canine-possession-aggression\/","title":{"rendered":"Dog Food Aggression or Canine Possession Aggression"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nby nancyg48<\/a><\/div>\n

Dog food aggression<\/strong> is viewed as one of those dog behavior challenges. It just doesn’t seem to make sense to us that our dog would feel threatened by us taking his or her food. I mean we gave him the food to begin with so logically we are givers, not takers.<\/p>\n

Let’s look at it from a dog’s view.<\/p>\n

When a dog glares and growls and puts himself between his food and us, he’s saying “this is my food and you are going to get hurt if you come any closer to it”.<\/strong> He’s basically telling us he is the leader or alpha dog in the home.<\/p>\n

Dog food aggression (often called canine possession aggression) is a dominance problem.<\/p>\n

It needs to be handled when you see it as it will not disappear on its own.<\/p>\n

Even though people often find it funny the first time they see their dog do this, especially if it is a puppy or a small dog, realize that allowing your dog to continue this behavior is sending the wrong message to your pet. It says that he\/she is, indeed, the alpha dog and with that message, the behavior can escalate out of control.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen unchecked aggressive behavior cause a dog to harm his owner, badly.\u00a0 It started with dog food aggression that the owner ignored.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why Does The Dog Display Dog Food Aggression?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Canine possession aggression<\/strong> is caused by any number of reasons.\u00a0 Here are some of the more common ones:<\/p>\n