When I got my first puppy aged thirteen, we borrowed a book on dog training from the local library. I read it cover to cover, determined to train my bubbly, squeaky little border terrier myself. We didn’t attend classes or employ a dog trainer, we just muddled through at home – and looking back, I do think we were very lucky that this didn’t backfire on us. Rusty’s temperament and eagerness to please meant that we never went too far wrong (aside from a few failed recalls when she had seen a rabbit!).

One piece of advice from the book that I took very seriously, was the need to remove the puppy’s food from under her nose while she was eating, wait a few minutes, and then return it again. This exercise was purported to ‘show the dog who is boss’ and prevent resource guarding issues from developing.

The reality is, carrying out exercises such as this is a fast track to creating a guarding issue. Let’s break it down and think about it in terms of what the dog is learning in this scenario.

Your dog is likely being fed 1-3 times per day, depending on their age and lifestyle. For most dogs, mealtimes are exciting – a whole bowl of delicious food to sink their teeth into, after possibly not having access to any for a few hours. Eating satisfies one of your dog’s most basic needs, so even from an evolutionary perspective, it’s no wonder that their meals can become intensely rewarding for them.

Let’s add you into this situation. Initially, you are the provider of the food. Your dog may know that if you pick up their bowl, go to the fridge, or to a particular cupboard, awesome things are about to happen. You put the bowl down and they get stuck in eating.

Now you sweep in and try to grab that bowl of food from under their nose. What is your dog learning here? Are they learning that you are the boss? Probably not – studies have shown that there is no dog-human dominance hierarchy, and dogs do not keep a tally of who has come out ‘on top’. They are motivated by consequence and reward. What your dog may be learning instead, is that you are a thief – you are going to try to steal their food from them!

Some dogs (take Rusty, for example) will tolerate this. Rusty never escalated her behaviour or developed any signs of guarding; she just watched me remove the food with a slightly confused look on her face. However, Rusty had an extremely placid temperament, with a tendency to try to appease people rather than escalate into an aggressive response.

If a dog with a more impulsive temperament were to repeatedly have their food taken away, and started to view the handler as a potential thief, they may begin to escalate their responses and start to show aggression in an attempt to maintain access to the resource. The manifestation of resource guarding can range from posturing and showing whale eye, all the way up to snarling, snapping, and biting. It is a serious behaviour problem that requires intense management and behaviour modification in many cases, and puts people in the household at risk of being bitten.

So if taking our dog’s food away isn’t a good way to prevent guarding, what can we do instead? A great exercise to practice is to approach your dog’s bowl while they are eating and add something, instead of taking anything away. Be aware that this is a preventative exercise: if your dog is already displaying signs of resource guarding, do not attempt to approach them while they are eating. You will need to work with a qualified behaviourist to resolve this.

Small exercises such as this can make a huge difference to your dog’s feelings around resources, and they are worth practicing at all ages – from puppy to mature adult. And, it’s worth remembering that not all dog training advice is equal; think carefully about what you want your dog to learn before you apply techniques.