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Posted by Gowan
on October 28, 2009, 6:31 pm, in reply to "Re: Come on guys...."
75.164.152.241
I have one of Virginia's puppies out of Trajan and Padamae. He is a fabulous little dog, (though has enough energy for about six puppies) he displayed food aggression with me once when we first brought him home- growled when I took his bowl. I didn't want to have a food aggressive dog, since I was raised with one and got nipped by my grandparent's dog fairly often. So, we started hand feeding him particularly good bits of food while he ate out of his bowl. We also worked on "leave it" like crazy- he has a great leave it, and we worked hard for it. We also made him focus on us instead of the food- I wouldn't give him the "take it" command until he looked away from the food and at me.
As a result, he's pretty darn good. He won't even take food that falls on the floor. But I would never tell anyone other than me that they could put their hand in his bowl. He was also fine eating around other dogs when he was younger, but I haven't tried it recently and I'll bet he'd be protective of it. I think it's completely natural to animals that grow up in a competitive group, like a pile of puppies all trying to climb into the same bowl, to be defensive. I certainly growled at my cousin when he tried to take my food when we were kids. So, as long as he isn't going to attack anyone, (we've fed him with company over, and he was fine) and as long as he knows that I am the absolute god of the food bowl, I'm fine with it.
That is my totally amateur 2 cents.
(Also... can we vote to have that Trisha lady blasted into space or something?)
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