Dog Training - How To Stop Possessive Aggression

This type of dog training is best handled with positive conditioning rather than negative reinforcement.

You've seen it happen with your new pet. He's laying on the floor happily chewing on his new rawhide. You playfully approach him, but instead of a playful response, your loving pet growls at you. He may even nip if you get to close. This is possessive aggression, it's natural in most dogs, and you need to teach him that this is not OK.

Start this dog training by giving him an appealing object. We typically use a rawhide. Now walk away. Return with a favorite treat or food. It needs to be something he really loves. Something even more appealing than what you've already given him. Drop it in front of your pet and again walk away. However if he growls when you approach him, then walk away without leaving the food. For the purposes of this training, you went to close. Repeat the process again in a few minutes, but this time throw the treat from a distance so you don't get any signs of aggression.

Gradually decrease the space between you and your pet over the course of several weeks. This will build his trust and he will understand that you are approaching him to give and not to take away. These sessions need to be frequent but very short. Yes he loves the treat, but each repetition should only give him a small amount of food to keep him interested in earning greater rewards. As a general rule, 4 dog training sessions a day is enough with about 4 or 5 repetitions per session.

First you will get to the point where he will take the treat directly from your hand. Then to the point where you can take his rawhide, give him a treat, then return the rawhide for him to chew.

By doing this, your dog training teaches him to look forward to your approach when he has an object, and even allows you to take the object with no aggression from him.

We have to stress that this will only work if you follow the procedure and do it slowly. Once you are successful, continue the process intermittently forever.

It's also important that all members of your family take part in this dog training so he will learn to generalize the proper behavior. Remember that dogs are naturally possessive of things they "own". You are trying to break him of this while around members of the family. This procedure really works, you just need to be consistant and proceed slowly.

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