The Possessiveness Has Spread...

...to a frisbee. We got him a frisbee today and has started growling when I go near him when he has it. None of his other toys, just the frisbee. Could this be because it's new, or...no? It's really worrying me, because I feel like I'm failing him and must be doing something incredibly wrong for him to be possessive at such a young age. Not to mention, I've been doing what I thought I was meant to do (getting him to sit and wait before he can have something, etc.) and I thought we'd made progress, but...I don't know. It's not through lack of consistency either, every single time he gets a toy, he has to sit first. The only thing I can think of to make him think he owns the toys is that I don't put them away or anything, they've always been lying around. So I've just gathered them all up and put them in a box so I can give them to him when I decide, and take them away as I decide. Could that be the reason he's still being possessive? Also, he knows "drop it" but it's kind of hit and miss at the moment, so I need to work on that with him more, but for the time being, drop it usually only works if I have a treat. Could I try that, or will it not make a difference because I'm just bribing him with treats?

Any advice would be great, because minus leaving his toys lying around, I can't really think of anything else that could've made him possessive, or anything else I could do to stop it.

Continue with the drop it training using a treat, offer him a treat when you want him to give up the frisbee so you do a swop. At this stage your safety is more important than him having a treat. I would do the drop it training for 5 minutes every hour, this will teach him to it much quicker.

Bribery is when we say to one of our children, "if you tidy your room you can go and see the new Harry Potter film". Offering a dog a treat if he drops the frisbee is not bribery.

Guarding like that is perfectly natural and you're not failing him!

It's very common if people don't do a lot of preventative training with young pups.

Making him sit before, whilst good manners and good practise, will have no bearing on him not guarding his favourite toy. You need to make it beneficial for him to give you things, something better needs to happen when he gives something up to you. Tug is great for working on this as you can make the game start again as soon as he drops as a great reward.

Treats might not cut it with a fun toy so it might be an idea to use another toy.

'Bribing' is luring which is fine for now although you should start to fade the lure once he's reliably giving you whatever he has. If he's not giving whatever he has up then the lure isn't good enough.

Also, don't just take what he has and put it away, maybe keep the frisby away at the moment until his drop is a bit better but always make sure you leave him with something/give him back what he had. Remember giving you things needs to equall good stuff for dogs not bad stuff for dogs

Cyril baby wrote:...Bribery is when we say to one of our children, "if you tidy your room you can go and see the new Harry Potter film". Offering a dog a treat if he drops the frisbee is not bribery.

Depends on whether the dog sees the treat first or not.

If the dog sees the treat first, it is bribing aka luring.

If the dog doesn't see you have a treat but performs the requested behaviour anyway then receives the treat after as a reward, it is not bribing

Thanks to both of you

I already get him to drop his toy and play with him with it again, as well as sometimes using treats, so that's why I'm not sure where the possessiveness comes from; I don't just tease him by taking things off him and not giving them back or anything. He's only like it with the frisbee, which I got him today, so quite confusing, he's not like it with his other toys, even his favourites.

So getting him to drop it and then continue the playing will get him out of the mindset of being possessive?

Any possessiveness from Chance we traded the item for higher value treat, in our case a favourite treat of his.

Should do

You might need to get another frisbee though if he values that more than any other toy/treat!

Bacon had issues with this as well. I found that working on his drop it command ironed it out pretty well.

I used a chicken breast jerky piece in one hand and a spoon full of peanut butter in the other. I let him chew on the chicken and asked him to drop and at the same time moved the spoon with peanut butter in front of his face. He hasn't been possesive since... I still work on this with him regularly though.

I also felt worried when he was possesive, but you'll resolve if you keep working on it.

Galadriel wrote:

Cyril baby wrote:...Bribery is when we say to one of our children, "if you tidy your room you can go and see the new Harry Potter film". Offering a dog a treat if he drops the frisbee is not bribery.

Depends on whether the dog sees the treat first or not.

If the dog sees the treat first, it is bribing aka luring.

If the dog doesn't see you have a treat but performs the requested behaviour anyway then receives the treat after as a reward, it is not bribing

Dogs don't do bribery because they think differently to us, `if they see something that they think is better they want it so they drop what they have, you don't say to the dog give that up and you can have this treat, the dog wouldn't understand. I see people who want the get their dog off the sofa hold a treat in front of them to get them off, it isn't bribery it is luring but you are still swopping for something that has a higher reward to the dog. In this situation I prefer to put a lead on and encourage the dog off the sofa then reward but it is personal preferance.

Oh trust me, he values treats above all else except playing with multiple dogs. I know because I've tried

But thanks everyone I also played tug-of-war with his toy stick (his favourite toy) and have been telling him to drop it and his reward being the continuation of playing rather than a treat, and surprisingly it worked very well. He doesn't growl over the stick anyway, but it's helping us work on him dropping things, so still good.

Oh, and Cyril Baby, thanks for the bonus advice regarding the couch; he hasn't done that in a little while, but that's been a new problem too, so thanks again

My 2 aren't possessive at all, I've never let them.

The day Diesel growled at me when I went to take her bone away was the last time she did it. I was so shocked she growled I went from calm to super assertive mode.

U need to nip it in the bud. The leave command works great with Diesel, I walk to her say leave and she will move away.

Even my pup learnt very early on, bottom line is I'm a busy mum of 4 kids one if which is special needs whom I homeschool so I can't take any crap from my furkids !

You will nail it but if u are even the slightest bit nervous or scared, your dog will sense it

Your on the right track. Just stay consistant in what you are doing and add in replacing the frisbee with a treat and he'll get it.

yeah when we first got vinnie he growled alot and i got a bit weary of him lol but after a while i realised he was just playing and id growl back and hed wag his tail and run on lol, luckily enough he hasnt really been possessive over anything except me when i try and cuddle my oh he pounces on my lap for strokes haha

i agree with kelly above, my dog growls at me all the time when she has toys but its in a playful mode, i growl back and we have a great time. im still in control by getting her to sit for it every now and then