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How can I calm down my akita puppy's agression?
I have a soon to be six month old akita puppy, and he is food agressive (typical of most akitas.) The first fight occured between my lab and him when he growled at her, and she attacked him (she is also food agressive.) She is trained well enough to know when I say stop I mean it, and she backed off. However, the akita was insanely agressive and kept continuously trying to attack her again. Another fight occured the other day, because she was close to his (the akitas) food bowl. Again, she (the lab) instigated. This fight was horrid, I literally had to pin down the akita pup before he would calm down. I know that akitas are supposed to be food agressive, and I know they are a dominant breed. That I'm okay with, however it seems that the4 akita's agression is on the extreme side when it comes to food/retaliation. He does wonderful when people take his food, he is great with kids and other than food is wonderful with other dogs. I love this little guy and I want to calm his agression.
Asked by
Zeppelin
on Dec 31st 2011
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in Behavior & Training
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Here's an article on resource guarding (food/item aggression): www.paw
I only skimmed this, but it seems helpful as well: www.google.com
Gray Dawn Treader
answered on 1/1/12.
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First of all, why are you feeding them together??? Any dog, no matter what breed it is, is likely to develop resource guarding if they are forced to protect their food (or other resources) from another dog. Even if they don't actually become agressive to the other dog it is extremely stressful for BOTH dogs to have to be worrying about how much the other dog got and how quickly they can finish and get the other dog's food.
I would strongly suggest you separate them for feeding... like one shut in the bathroom and the other shut in the kitchen. When they are BOTH finished, pick up the dishes and put them away BEFORE you let the dogs back together.
No where is it written that an akita has to be food aggressive... training and preventing the opportunity to become a resource guarder will certainly help in that area.
NO DOG should be forced to have any person or any other animal mess with their food. Doing stuff like that is one of the main reasons dogs become food aggressive.
Toto, CD, RN, CGC
answered on 1/1/12.
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