[yorkietalkjilly]

I forgot to add after mentioning feeding you dog in the new bowl with the one treat in it on the couch, that you need to take the bowl throughout the house and sit down on the floor holding that bowl and dropping the treat in it and allowing him to eat out of it in many different places. Over time this shows him that that place in his crate where his bowl sat and he guarded it are all over and now the bowl is yours and when you take it around to various places and control it, he's allowed to approach and eat a juicy chicken treat. He'll come to love you owning and controlling his bowl. Then, you can in time put his bowl anywhere and approach it without rancor on his part because he will have come to understand it is no longer his to guard and besides, you give better things than he guarded anyway.

Moving his crate about and tossing in treats and toys for him to go get when you allow will show him that the crate is also yours and if he wants in to get the food or toy, you have to allow it, in time changing his mindset about needing to guard things in it or people around it. Move the crate to other rooms and toss the treats in it. Just getting the old bowls out of the crate he guarded in the old place and starting a new way of his seeing the whole set up will snap his mind out of his recurrent guarding notions and unsettle him so you can rebuild his attitude toward it, things in it and your relationship to it. And moving the crate about from one room to another will keep him off-balance and from getting into OCD guarding while you are training him about who owns it.

In time, by NILIF and obedience and discomfiting him regarding uprooting his crate/things in it and retraining, he will start to see things in the right way - with you as his pack leader and one who is taking over how things run but there is a lot in it for him - juicy treats and lots of praise. And a happy mommy. And you are good enough to allow him to take treats from your bowl and even enter your crate to get them. You'll be tops in his eyes and he'll want to please you. And he'll learn to love to see you coming toward his crate - like Pavlov's dog, he'll be conditioned in time to react happily to seeing you approach it.