What should I do when my dog gets angry?

Question

Whenever my dog has a bone and I go near him he gets angry. He even bit me once. This is the only time he gets vicious, when he's holding a bone. Other than that he is a very peaceful dog. What should I do when he gets angry like this? Should I just leave him alone or should I take some sort of action?

Answer 1

he is tyring  to  dominate you                        

Answer 2

For now, I would just not give him any bones. Dogs tend to get very protective over things like bones, rawhide, etc.

To train him to be not so protective, you want to show him that people coming near him when he is eating/chewing is a good thing rather than a bad thing (his bone being taken away). Here are some things to try:

1. When he is busy chewing/eating, approach him and throw him a really yummy treat from a distance. Keep repeating until he is comfortable with this and starts associating people coming near him as something yummy. Once he is comfortable you can slowly reduce the distance.

2. Teach your dog the Drop command

3. Play the Object Exchange game.

4. Ensure there are no high priority items (bones, rawhide) around when strangers are present.

Answer 3

You should be concerned that he may become aggressive about his other food. Try swaps, have two bones and when he is busy with a bone, throw the other bone. Hopefully he will drop his bone and run for the other. Do this on  a regular basis and eventually give him a bone with very little meat on it, show him the meaty bone that you have and indicate that he can have it. As he goes towards the meaty bone take the other from his mouth.

I don't know if you do any training with your dog, however you should at least train him to "leave" on command. Buy some training disks, don't buy the cheap ones because they come without instruction. They were designed by John Fisher and they are available in most pet shops in the UK. and cost about £9. Go through the very short simple introduction and then use these when you want him to leave anything. This might be easier than doing swaps. He must learn that he has to give his bone up.

Answer 4

Then don't give him bones. Simple. He can live without

Answer 5

Why do you want to go near a dog with a bone?  Leave him alone unless he's choking on it and just stay in the same room with him til he's done so you can supervise that he doesn't choke or it doesn't splinter.  I hope these bones are RAW soup bones and not chicken or pork or steak or anything cooked cause they all splinter.

Answer 6

all i can say is you should ingnore him. when ever he comes near you after wards turn ur back and walk away. he should get the point. hopr this helps!^.^

Answer 7

Give a dog a bone, leave a dog alone