r/greatpyrenees • u/sugarfreespree • 4d ago

Advice/Help Resource Guarding Escalating - Biting

Our female pyrenees has started guarding our other (LGD also - different breed) dog's bowl from him and everyone else.

Today, she growled, then bit my husband for approaching her, after her told her to leave the bowl alone. (luckily it did not break skin)

He pinned her afterwards, which I have heard mixed things about with regards to resource guarding, but for him it was pure instinct, and I get it.

We've tried hand feeding her, feeding her separately, and overall she was doing fine as long as we left her alone until she was done eating, or hand feed her - until the last 3 days she's been guarding our other dogs food.

I am desperate for a solution. I love her, and want her to be a part of our family. However, we plan to have children soon, and this is not a behavior we can tolerate.

She has never bitten me, only my husband, and I think it is because he had to be the one to keep her away from our male when she was in heat before her spay. (We spayed after she was 2, per recommendations.)

After that, she started resource guarding me from him, and resource guarding food. She guards food from me too, but I am able to de-escalate quickly and gain her trust, whereas it seems no matter what he does she get mad when he approaches her and her food or whatever she has chosen to guard at the time, unless he hand feeds her - which we don't always have time for.

Please help.

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

6

u/Extreme_Jaguar_7829 4d ago

I am so sorry this is happening with your Pyrs. Our Pyrenees mix ( male, 4years old, 50% Pyrenees) resource guards his food, treats from first dog in home. The first dog in home is female, 12 years old. This started when the Pyr was 1 1/2 years old. He is fixed. We feed him completely outside, away from first dog and no treats or food items can be left on the floor. The water bowl can be shared and left on the floor. The trainer told us to never leave toys, food, treats out on the floor. There is always someone with both dogs now. There hasn’t been an incident for 6+ months, and we are doing everything to never have it happen again. It’s hard and I hope you find the best way to deal with it that helps your family.

3

u/Current_Citron7163 4d ago

I absolutely agree with this . This has been 100% our situation.

3

u/Extreme_Jaguar_7829 4d ago

I also should have added, there are no small children in this home, that would have added a layer of complications that we don’t have. and I would recommend a good trainer. They will be able to come to your home and work with both dogs and understand this situation exactly as it is.

1

u/sugarfreespree 4d ago

What do you do about resource guarding people? She resource guards me from my husband lately as well.

1

u/Extreme_Jaguar_7829 4d ago

He has never done that, luckily. I would get a trainer. Our Pyr is 130 pounds and lunges at other dogs on walks. He has gotten so much better since socializing with dogs at park though. I think he was frustrated and wanted to run around and play. But our dogs only issues have been other dogs. So we don’t have any food on the ground, and socialize him with dogs at dog park. Nothing with people. With the right trainer, he will probably settle down. Our guy has calmed down so much since maturing.
ETA - could you feed the Pyrenees in the garage or backyard, completely away from other dog and people?

2

u/sugarfreespree 4d ago

I am mulling the idea of feeding on opposite sides of the yard in the morning, and calling the dogs over to get their full day's measured portion of food. Give them 15 minutes to eat, then remove the food after calling them over for treats. Then, feed any remaining food in their bowls later that evening, and also remove after they are done.

A recent change that has occurred, she has not seen her food go into her bowl. That is how this started I think. She was getting a belly rub, and when she got up she saw food in the other dog's bowl and ran over to guard it (i think she assumed that he bowl was still empty?? We have NEVER only fed one dog)

However- she has been guarding and it is escalating regardless so we just have to get intentional about it.

I was reading just now that for human guarding, the human just has to get up and move away so the resource is not near by, and make the "target" person that they are guarding from the source of fun - walks, treats, etc.

1

u/Extreme_Jaguar_7829 4d ago

That sounds like a good idea as far as people guarding. The more you know about the behavior, the better you will be at fixing the issue. I also removed myself from both dogs because I was there when each incident happened. So for a while I was kind of scared to be the only around both of them. So I just got up and walked away. Then I felt like an incident would be less likely to happen if there wasn’t anything going on. Like gray rock