Quote:
Originally Posted by GeorgiesMomma  I completely agree Betty! My son knows not to go around Georgie when he is eating for a couple of reasons. One being I believe Georgie should be given his space to eat and secondly Georgie gets a little feisty. (1)I just don't understand why he gave her the food, said good girl as if to reassure her she could eat then took it away? What did he think would happen? I think he's a little man that can't dominate humans so he does it to dogs JMO |
Awh I have a whole lot to say about this whole video. First we stopped watching CM years ago, and one of our most often comments was gawd - he would not have gotten away doing x/y or z with our big boy Magic. And that would not have been a pleasant encounter for him either.
Now to the video; what comes to my mind immediately is the question; What came before? What was the history of the dog? What did CM try first? Second? or Third? But if this was his first "technique" to try to address food aggression issues, it quite simply was Way Way Overboard!. And I am talking from the time he stood in a challenging frontal position over her while she was eating!.
I will disagree with part of the analysis of the blogspot Brit posted. And ramp forward to when the dog had been laying quietly and CM from a standing position with a soft hand went over her muzzle to pet her. There was as far as I could see no warning in her body language at all. She could have ducked her head away from an unwanted pet; not go for his hand. Now I am only speaking personally but if I a stranger to this dog, had had some severe warnings and snaps and growls when I took the bowl away; I would not have stood over her and tried to pet her, no matter that she had been laying quietly for 1 or 2 minutes.
What would I have done? Quite simply call the dog to me and ask for a sit, reward with a treat from that food bowl, if she had obeyed that command.
I also concur CM was an idiot not to be dressed appropriately for a bite!!!!
And yes that Holly could have hurt him more, as a Lab or Lab mix they were bred to have soft mouths! Not to crunch down on the birds they would be retreiving from water/land.
When I saw that dog go for the hand in the petting situation; no way would I have this dog around toddlers. This dog is NOT SAFE for toddlers.
DID CM aggressively pursue and set up an untenable situation YOU BETCHA! So So un necessary, at least given the history very short that we have seen.
To answer the question (1) - one of the requisites of dogs is that when you say "stop" eating they will let you take the food bowl away. Ideally you work towards not needing to say anything and take it away.
Now in training (what I have been taught) the sequence is. Dog's name you call. you have a high value treat in hand. They lift their head from the food bowl, you say Good BOY immediate reward with that treat. Say go ahead eat your food. You repeat this two or three times for every meal.
SAme scenario, but once the dog lifts its head you reward, and you take the bowl away. The dog is to remain seated. You reward the sit. You can use his actual food in bowl to reward with. This is very powerfull. The dog knows that this is his food bowl, and you the master is feeding him from it.
Then you move onto, as above, then still treating him you place bowl back down, and say WAIT. He waits you reward him. Then you release him to free feed.
As you can see this is motivational mindset; how-ever some dogs do not train well or easily; and btw they are very very few indeed.
I will relate a true life story for Magic my very dominant - not so aggressive big boy. He was not toy or food (regular) food aggressive, but give him a bone a real meaty bone, and watch out!! At about 1yr old and 90 or more pounds hubby tried to take his bone away, Magic was contentedly chewing it in the backyard and hubby wanted to mow the lawn. He growled,then he snarled, then he air snapped. By this time hubby is incensed. Hubby is shouting at him! Magic give it, Magic drop it!
It was by now male testosterone coming up against male testosterone. When I got into the backyard, hubby had Magic's neck noosed up and he was on his hind legs, Magic had his bone in his mouth and wouldn't let go for love nor money. It was an awful racket going on!!
I intervened. I said hubby stop this!! Let him go! oNCE done I called Magic to me. He came. Still growling. I said GOOD COME!! DOWN! He went down still with bone in his mouth. I left the situation there. Why? I was not sure how to "safely" proceed. Magic obeyed two commands was out of the way of the lawn mower. I needed to talk with my trainer! Which I did. I DID NOT TRY to repeat two commands Dave was unsuccessful with. I knew enough not to do that!
So then what? Well we set up on our next training day, another "helper". I came with double collars and long leads for Magic. Also two nice fresh meaty bones. He was double collared, and the two leads were hung over tree branches on opposite sides of the tree. If Magic was not willing to exchange one lovely meaty bone for the next, and snarled lunged etc, he would be hung up from that tree. I agreed with trepidation. So I walked forward to him, and his sit/stay reward was one of those juicy bones. We let him chew for a minute or more, all leads loose. I walked away, and got the second bone. Approached Magic, btw face on. With that other juicy bone in hand. I said Magic SIT - he sat!. I said Give it.... He gave it and I immediately placed the fresh bone in his mouth with a BIG GOOD BOY. We worked for about 30 minutes with this; until finally he would just give up his bone for a nice pat and GOOD BOY!. Also he would get the bone back at some point in time.
So we learnt together.
The difficulty is with toddlers and young children, you just can't trust them not to stumble into a food bowl, or want to investigate a food bowl. They are after all just very young children! So the dog has to be trained to be non food aggressive to anyone.
's