Help!

[Woodstock25]

Tony, our 7 month old cocker arrived last Monday, and he is adorable. He is mostly well behaved and is a typical 7 month old.

We knew Tony, had food aggression when we got him, and was a bit toy aggressive. Nothing else to note really, He seems to have been settling in very well, but seems to have these absolutely crazy sessions, where he goes a bit bonkers for about half an hour, especially after feeding, although we try to keep in calm, and have had to resort to putting him in his cage on a couple of occasions as he was becoming quite boisterous and growling at his toys

Tonight he was sat down after being in his cage for a bit to try to calm him down after another crazy half hour.

He was sat down very calmly at feet and  I was giving him a little chicken with the word 'nicely', in an attempt to get Toby to be more gentle in taking his treats, rather than snatch at them. He was doing very well!

He had had about half a dozen small bits of chicken, and had taken them really well and gently.  The next piece he growled at me as I gave it to him, so i stopped giving it to him for a bit

 After about 5 minutes I returned to try to give him another piece, and he went for me, biting me hard on the arm. I managed to get hold of his collar and he was still lashing out with his teeth and growling and i managed to get him into his cage.

To say that we are both upset is an  understatement and I am completely at a loss as to what to do. My wife is minded to call the RSPCA; she is adamant that we cannot have a dog that bites, especially as we take him into work where the ladies in the office dote on him. I cannot risk him biting one of them

Anything you would suggest I do?

Thanks

[MIN]

they can be little s****. 
The mental half hour is what we call the Zoomies. Spaniels are known for it. Some people crate them to calm them down, most of us lift our feet off the floor and let them get it out the system.
 As for the food aggression. what is he like  at meal times and what is he like at all other times when no food (including treats) is on offer

[Woodstock25]

they can be little s****. 
The mental half hour is what we call the Zoomies. Spaniels are known for it. Some people crate them to calm them down, most of us lift our feet off the floor and let them get it out the system.
 As for the food aggression. what is he like  at meal times and what is he like at all other times when no food (including treats) is on offer

Ok - zoomies, seems to make sense.

He growls when/if we are near after I put his bowl down. We have a behaviourist coming to help us with this the week after next, but in the mean time I'm worried how to proceed.

Sent from my E6853 using Tapatalk

[MIN]

that little bit of info is important. There are members on here that have had this issue. Hang on, someone will be along to advise the best way to go until the behaviourist meeting. Personally I would stop food treats for the time being. The office ladies must be told not to offer food.  when you feed him, move away and leave him to it.
As he is 7 months old do you know anything about his previous life. I ask because our Gemma came to us at 10 months and we knew nothing about her so all training etc we had to start from scratch

[Theo961]

Hi and welcome to COL
I am sorry to hear you are having problems.
I am new to cockers and have never had a resource guarding dog so not able to offer much advice, but there are some very experienced people on this site who I am sure will be along soon.
I think the mad times seem to be normal for a cocker and he is still very young. And as for the resource guarding agression   I can only really suggest Google, Victoria sitwell seems to have some good information online. Otherwise I am sure someone experienced will be along soon.
Take care
Tracy

[daw]

Hi and welcome to the world of guarding!

We've always had spaniels and corgis and currently have a boy from a rescue because we were his last chance. He came guarding everything, food, toys, stolen objects. A stick. And we were both bitten in the first couple of weeks. I can sympathise with your shock. It had never happened to us before. I would certainly talk to a behaviourist asap. In the meantime you can. 1. Take it in turns to feed- we began by feeding outside at the back door, sitting on the step and holding the food bowl, not looking or otherwise interacting, taking the bowl away when food was finished and all the time ignoring him. No other food or treats of any kind was offered and we didn't let anyone give him a treat when out. 2. Remove any high value items like toys from the house. 3. If anything is stolen (a sock!) ignore and don't try to get it back, look at it or acknowledge it has any value. 4. Just try ignoring this youngster more, generally with less voice or eye contact. I'm of the pick your feet up and let them zoom around school- there's adrenalin that has to go somewhere- but don't join in or encourage.  I'm sure a behaviourist with positive training techniques will give advice  and a strategy but in the meantime it's a case of keeping really calm and of course keeping yourselves safe.

good luck    (Oh yes and we stuck with the programme and 3 years later he's still here.)

[Pearly]

As Lorna has said, there are folk on here that live with cockers that resource and / or food guard who will offer better advice than I can give.

Your boy is young - he's still a puppy - in my experience he won't fully mature behaviourly until he's the best part of 3 years old. 

He will be in a very confused state at he moment.  I work with a spaniel rescue - we always advise that it can take at least six weeks for a dog to settle into its new home, smells, level of noise/light, routines, commands, food - you name it, it's all new and probably quite overwhelming.

You have clearly thought through getting Tony and have taken the time to join COL which tells me you want the best for your boy.  My initial thoughts are that the behaviourist is a good idea - so long as they don't use any form of aversive training - positive reward is good but please don't reward with treats.  However much you want him to know when he's behaving, rewarding with food this early on may exacerbate the problem.  Consider, you are hungry, in a strange environment and the lovely people who are being really kind to you (except when they lock you up for being a 'puppy'  - just kidding) taunt you with the best treat you've ever had in your life and then take it away! When they bring it back I'd likely try to get to it as fast as I can just in case it disappeared again  if it was wine they'd be no stopping me 

I'm not trying to be hard or criticise - just wanted you to consider from Tony's point of view.  I'm guessing that you don't know his history other than what the RSPCA have been told? He may have been taunted over food, punished by having his food taken away while he was eating or not fed at all.  At 7 months old he's barely through the teething age - there are lots of threads on here about the dreaded cockerdile phase - I can imagine his previous owners probably despaired he would ever get through it.  Of course, that's assuming he only had one set of owners...........

We've just rehomed a 5 year old cocker spaniel from a friend who has quite a few dogs.  She's the most soft natured dog, well fed and cared for but will scavenge if any of ours drop even the tiniest morsel - she has no need to, we would give her more if she was thin or we knew was really hungry but because she's always eaten in a hurry with lots of other dogs she behaves this way.  We are lucky in that we know everything about our newest girl.

My best advice would be for you to set a routine for him, so he knows when to expect his food, or a walk, or play time (he is still a puppy and will have lots of bursts of excitable energy) and reward with cuddles and soft stroking.  Although he doesn't appear so he is probably just as frightened of you as you are of him right now.  At his age I am certain that it's not deliberate but you may have a long journey to help him overcome his fears/guarding or whatever other diagnosis/label the behaviourist gives him.

In the meantime, we are all here to help you in that journey.  There are few cocker spaniel owners who don't have some story or experience to share - they must be rare and probably not on here 

I hope you and your arm are ok?

Welcome to COL - I'm Jayne and owned by Pearl (show type blue roan age 5.5) and Coral (age 18 months black and white working cocker spaniel) I also look after my OH cockers: Sally - golden working cocker spaniel age 2 and Purdey - black and white working cocker spaniel age 5.5 who belong to Mark

[Woodstock25]

Thank you all so much for your advice.

Toby (not Tony as I had a bad spoll chick moment) really is a gorgeous dog, and we very much do want to do the right thing. Much of what you have all said makes absolute sense. Our last dog was an agoraphobic Collie, and her problems were at the other end of the spectrum from Toby's.

We will hold the treats until the behaviourist comes on her home visit; thinking about it, I expect Toby fells overwhelmed, and adjusting to us, and us to him clearly is going to take time....so its slowly slowly then, and more ignoring him!

I'll have a search for the cockerdile - that's a great description - and perfectly describes his mouth play!

Thanks again.

[Ben's mum]

Sorry you are having issues with Toby, I agree with what Pearly says, it's early days and he is still young.
We adopted Harry when he was 8 months old, and knew nothing of his history except we were his third home 
He turned out to be a resource guarder and had a whole range of anxieties around people putting their hand near him, and yes me and OH were badly bitten in the first few weeks several times. I have to admit to wondering what had we done 

To cut a long story short we had excellent advice from Top Barks, and people on here. We learnt very quickly how to defuse situations and he is a joy to live with now and has been with us 6 years, so I guess he is staying 
He still has his moments, but I take him to work with me and have no concerns about there being any issues, I just ensure no one feeds him just in case

Good luck, I am sure it will all work out for you all 

[lescef]

Hi. Lots of good advice above and not much to add. Bramble is a guarder and easily excited. We found out early on that high value treats were making her guarding much worse. There is no way she could have chicken and her treats were just boring low value kibble. She is much more likely to guard either whilst waiting for her food or just after she's  eaten as she's so aroused. She needs a  calm environment.
 With management she has got better but treats like pizzles have to be eaten in isolation.

[bizzylizzy]

Hi! We dont, luckily, have any issues with Humphrey, I just wanted to butt in a say what a lot of really interesting advice has been given here, - its been a really useful thread!
Best of luck, I'm sure, with the back up here, you'll get the issue sorted! Do keep us posted!

[AlanT]

These are working dogs. You have to find him a job. Working earns a reward.
Otherwise they are bored and get in trouble.

Every morning "head of security" has the task of shredding bank-statements.
He also compacts toilet-roll tubes.

Later on he finds hidden objects and I buy them.
Basically you wear them out. It's easier in the hot weather.

Don't mess with them when they are eating or sleeping.
Actually don't mess with them much at all.

If your Spaniel wants a fuss it will ask. Mine only asks my wife.
They are just full of "opinion".

You can see videos on here of me working mine, he's called Archie.
Could I cuddle him? Very doubtful.

[Woodstock25]

So two days on, and we are rigorously following the various lines of advice provided in here.  We have removed all treats (for now), and reduced the number of toys down to three (a pull rope, a stuffed chicken and a kong rugby ball) as well as telling the ladies in the office to stop fussing and not to feed him anything.

Yesterday Toby was an exceptionally well behaved chap.  He went to his bed at work, when it was obvious no one was going to make a fuss of him and he laid there for the best part of the day.  I took him out to the Common (smellsville!) for about an hour at lunchtime on the long lead, and he played 'what's the biggest stick i can carry'! I sat down on the bench, and eventually he brought a big stick to me jumped up on my lap and let go of it.  Lots of praise followed!   On the way home, we stopped for a walk up at a local beauty spot (no trees or sticks!) and he spent most of that 3/4 hour walk biting his lead, which I totally ignored, (planning being hatched for this).

Last night he was exemplary.  Cute, cuddly (he really loves being picked up and cuddles) and was really good at bringing toys to us on his one will, flopping over our feet and generally being a pleasure.  He still growls when we put his food down - but he doesn't seem to growl, if the food is already down and he enters the room.  We ignore him totally when eating.   He had a bonio before bed, and went to bed without a whimper!  He even met the cats a bit earlier, which is an entirely different challenge - and did not bark, or chase when told know (although I did hold is collar).  A very good day indeed.

I am very much left with the view that in his first few week with us, we totally overwhelmed him and probably tried to hard (especially with the treats), which caused him to go a bit bonkers.

I've also bought a couple of whistles and am going to try the recall to the whistle training as in the sticky thread.   I got the surprise of my life last night, when I thought I'd try the whistle out in the lounge (4 short blasts), just to see what it sounded like.  Toby bounded in - came to a screeching stop beside me, and sat down!  I tried it again, when my Son came home from work, and he did it again...    I'm not wondering if he has had some previous training, or was just inquisitive!!

[lescef]

Excellent news!
Sounds like he might have had some whistle training.

[bizzylizzy]

Oh that is encouraging, he's obviously responding well so I'm sure you'll sort it. It IS difficult when they first arrive, they look so cuddly and appealing and everyone excited but they can get very used to being center of attention all the time and don't really understand their role. (A bit like over spoilt children I suppose!  ).
Re the growling when he gets food - how do you give it him? I starting by holding the bowl up high and made Humphrey  sit down, if he went to grab it before I'd  given him the go ahead, I'd lift it up again so he learned he had to wait until I'd given  him the ok to eat. He really caught on very quickly and within a few days was sitting looking at me (pleading!!) for 10 seconds or so before I'd let him have it! No idea if it'll help but its a worth a try, if you haven't done it already!!