LIFESTYLE NEWS - Understanding your dog's behaviour is essential for building a healthy, trusting relationship. In this article, local animal behaviourist George van Huyssteen explains the important distinction between resource guarding and dominance in dogs.
While many dog owners may mistake resource guarding for dominance, it's a behaviour driven by the desire to protect valuable items like food, toys, or even space.
By recognising the signs and addressing this behaviour early on, you can help your dog feel more secure and create a safer environment for everyone involved.
Resource guarding is a commonly observed behaviour in dogs. It is characterised by avoidance, threatening, or aggressive behaviours to control access to food or other items in the presence of people or other animals.
This behaviour can manifest as growling, snapping, or even biting when someone attempts to approach or take away the guarded resource. Addressing resource-guarding behaviour through training and behaviour modification is crucial to ensuring the safety and well-being of all individuals involved.
It's a responsibility and commitment that all dog owners, trainers, and individuals involved in the care of dogs should take seriously.
Resource guarding in dogs can present in subtle ways, such as avoidance behaviour, mild aggression, and anxiety. Observable indicators include a rigid or crouched body posture, pinned back ears, lip licking, and physically obstructing access to the resource. This behaviour may escalate to more severe manifestations of aggression, including growling, snapping, or biting.
While food and food-related items are commonly guarded, dogs may also exhibit guarding behaviour towards toys, beds, furniture, bones, resting areas, and specific individuals. Resource guarding is not limited by gender or breed and may have a genetic basis. It can emerge at any life stage and may manifest gradually or suddenly following environmental or routine changes.
Resource guarding is not about dominance, which is a common misconception. Instead, it's crucial to understand the underlying emotions and motivations behind the behaviour, such as anxiety, fear, and frustration. This understanding is vital to effectively managing resource guarding and empowering dog owners and trainers with the knowledge and skills to address the issue.
Studies have shown that positive, reward-based methods are more effective and humane in managing behaviour problems like resource guarding, further reinforcing the importance of understanding this.
To a certain extent, resource guarding can be considered a normal canine behaviour, as acquiring resources is crucial for their survival. However, while this behaviour may be considered normal, it is not necessarily desirable, safe, or acceptable in a household setting. Regrettably, over time, dogs may learn that their aggressive responses are effective at protecting their resources, leading to the persistence or exacerbation of the behaviour.
Additionally, if a dog's mild signs of aggression are disregarded or reprimanded, this may cause their behaviours to escalate to more severe forms of aggression. However, with early intervention and the use of positive, reward-based methods, there is hope for a positive outcome in managing and addressing resource guarding. This approach can lead to a safer and more harmonious relationship between dogs and their owners, fostering a sense of optimism and hope in the audience.
So, what is dominance between dogs, then?
Dominance, as defined by the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behaviour (AVSAB), refers to a relationship between individual animals that is established to determine priority access to various resources, such as food, preferred resting spots, and mates.
It's important to note that in a dominant/submissive relationship, one individual consistently submits to the other. In the wild, these relationships serve to maintain order and reduce conflicts over limited resources, allowing energy to be conserved for essential activities like foraging, mating, and survival.
Establishing a hierarchy helps to minimise conflicts and aggression, as it determines which individuals have priority access to these limited resources. For instance, the AVSAB explains how subordinate males avoid conflict in a group of bulls by allowing only the dominant bull to mate, thereby minimising fights over mating rights.
Dominant animals often might intervene and prevent fights by moving in between two other animals that are about to fight for some reason. You often see this in places like dog parks, where misunderstandings between dogs might happen. As you can see, resource guarding is far from dominance.
Addressing resource-guarding behaviours can be complicated, and treatment will depend on the individual dog.
Unfortunately, there is no one-fix-all solution, but it typically involves removing trigger items, managing the environment, feeding dogs that resource guard separately, and using positive reinforcement techniques to teach the dog that another dog or human is no threat to his valuable resource.
What might cause a dog to resource guard items/food/an owner?
Genetics: A dog's breed or breed mix may predispose him to increased guarding behaviour.
History of resource scarcity: Lack of resources in previous homes or environments may increase guarding behaviour.
However, this is not as common as many people assume. Many dogs might come from resource-scarce situations and had no resource-guarding issues, and dogs never lacked anything to guard food or other items. Stress: When a dog is stressed, guarding behaviour may increase. This stress could be due to guests in the home, new family members (human or animal), or other stress-inducing events, such as fireworks.
Inherent value: Food often has the highest inherent value, as it is necessary for survival. However, every dog is different in what they find inherently valuable.
Article by George van Huyssteen (DipCABT. CCAB. CABTI. MHERA)
Click here to read more articles by Van Huyssteen.
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