How to train your dog to be less aggressive around food?

To help stop food aggression in your dog, it’s important to understand what it is and what you can do about it. If food aggression has become a serious issue for your dog, consider feeding them separately so you can focus on training. Step 1 is to hand-feed your dog, which involves feeding your dog pieces of food from your hand at the start of every meal. Feed a few pieces of kibble at a time, until you’ve fed about three-fourths of your dog’s normal meal. Then, slowly place the rest of the food in your dog’s bowl, and stay close while they eat. Over time, this exercise will get your dog used to others being near the bowl during meals and help them understand you’re not an intruder. In the next steps, you gradually reduce the amount of food you hand-feed them and add a treat to their bowl of food to reinforce their progress with positive association. Begin this step while you’re finishing the transition from hand-feeding to bowl-feeding, and return to the bowl while your dog is still eating and verbally reward them as you give them the treat.

If your dog shows guarding behaviours, leave them well alone when they are enjoying food or playing with toys by themselves. Taking things away from your dog as punishment or telling them off for guarding is likely to increase their anxiety about losing things. The best way to prevent dogs from resource guarding is to teach them from the start that there is no need to worry about losing anything they find valuable. To train your dog not to guard their food bowl, prepare some tasty treats for your dog, gently and quietly drop the extra treats on the ground near your dog as they’re finishing their dinner then walk away. Repeat this and, over time, progress to dropping the treats during their meal and closer to the bowl. Through repeating this and always moving away afterwards, your dog will learn to look forward to you approaching them while they’re eating. Progress to dropping food into your dog's empty bowl, over time, and as long as they aren’t worried, progress to placing their bowl down completely empty. Always swap the dog's item for something else, being consistent and always swapping items will help dogs learn to share without being worried. If you need to take something from your dog, swap it for something else that your dog considers to be equally or even more valuable.

To train your dog to be less aggressive around food, consider teaching your dog to sit for their dinner, as this will become their way of saying ‘please’ before being fed. Start by asking them to sit, then produce an empty bowl and gradually fill this with small amounts of food, one handful at a time. Your dog will learn to associate someone approaching their food bowl with the arrival of more food. The aim of desensitisation and counterconditioning is to gradually expose your dog to being approached by you when eating so they feel comfortable and learn to associate this with something good happening – in this case yummy treats. The steps will involve filing your dog’s food bowl with three quarters of the normal amount, placing it down and slowly introducing the remaining quarter in the form of high-value treats which they don’t normally get. Start by approaching the bowl, tossing the treats in and walking away. Once your dog accepts this, progress towards waiting longer before walking away, then bending down and placing the food into the bowl, tapping the bowl and finally picking it up to place the treats in before returning it to your dog. For new dogs or puppies, introduce them to hand feeding when they first arrive by feeding them with one hand and stroking them with the other, then progressing to holding their food bowl while they eat and eventually placing the food bowl on the floor and dropping small treats into their dinner. Keeping this up for the first few months will teach your dog to feel relaxed while eating in your presence.

Stay in the same room while your dog eats. This first step is sometimes enough to help dogs slowly calm down from food aggression. Dogs who have only mild food aggression will quickly realize they are not going to have their food stolen when a human family member is nearby. Stand near your dog and talk to her while she’s eating. Try practicing with treats, your dog may be less aggressive about a single treat than she is with a lot of food in her dish. Consider hand-feeding for a while, hand-feeding can be a great way to bond with your dog, it can also help her understand that having her food touched is not a bad thing, and it can even sometimes be a good thing. Touch the dog’s bowl without moving it while she eats, a dog who will let you touch her dish while she’s eating is well on her way to becoming less aggressive about her food in general. Eventually, work up to removing food from the dish, after you work through all the other tips on this list and get your dog used to the idea of having her bowl touched while she’s eating, you can practice removing a few pieces of kibble from the dish.