The Spaniel Annals

Our canine household has experienced some changes in the last few months. Blossom, who came to us with resource guarding issues around toys, improved with behavior modification and management. But the behaviors, always and only directed against the other dogs, never really went away, and so there was mild tension in the house everyday. I worried about her and Kerrie having more problems during their heat cycles. So when a wonderful single-dog home appeared through a cocker network (and after much mutual discussion), she is now thriving in her new home and is the apple of her owners’ eyes.

But her resource guarding inflamed Brian’s issues, which up to now had been mild, easily managed, and like Blossom, only directed at other dogs. He primarily guards his crates. Robbie had learned to work around his “hot spots,” and as Kerrie matured, I watched her disregard and thus defuse his attempts to guard his crate in the living room. But Blossom’s issues seemed to invigorate his, and after she left, he started becoming more aggressive–never doing damage or breaking skin, but making a lot of noise. Of course I worried that it could escalate.

This had to change. I turned to Karen Deeds of the Canine Connection,a behaviorist who teaches at the Fenzi Academy. I had taken her Resource Guarding class when Blossom was with us, and returned to its materials in this relatively new situation. This video shows 3 tools to help with guarding: “settle,” with Brian also working on going to his mat to interrupt guarding behaviors; crate work where Brian has to respond to various marked behavior cues; and “name game” during this crate work where Brian has to wait patiently when I say Kerrie’s name and give her food. (The “name game” typically involves alternating between both dogs’ names. Here instead I was alternating between Brian’s cues and Kerrie’s name.) All of these tools teach Brian to respond to me in typical guarding scenarios, “share” a resource with other dogs around, and anchor himself to a cued space (a mat) when resource guarding behaviors bubble up.

There are more tools to work on, but these are a good start, and I’m already seeing improvement.