they are always happy to bring it right to you in exchange for a toy that is permitted (no chasing them round the house!).

Haha, yeah it is great when they do that. My Shiba does that when he wants to play as well – it is adorable. Gotta love dogs!

Hugs to your furry gang!

We have trained both our Labs and all our previous dogs to sit and wait for their food. We also fed them in small increments getting them to sit and let us take their bowl between refills. Now they are so good with food we can even get them to stop half way through bowl of food and they will let us take it to top up or exchange for something else. (good when my husband accidentally gave one dog the other dogs antibiotics in her food!). We also trained them to exchange toys, so that when they take something they shouldn’t (a slipper for example) they are always happy to bring it right to you in exchange for a toy that is permitted (no chasing them round the house!).

A great article. Thank you.

the place I got her from is horrible, the strongest will survive, the animals are being neglected and beaten

Is this a city shelter or a private shelter? If the dogs are being mistreated, they should be reported so that things will improve for all the dogs there.
http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/abuse_neglect/tips/cruelty_action.html

Here is an article on how I trained my dog, and taught him the yes-mark and no-mark.

Dogs often get aggressive over food because they associate people coming near their stuff with something stressful or negative, e.g. people getting angry, losing their stuff, etc. Some things that help with my dogs -
1. I try to always stay calm. If I get angry or frustrated, my dog will pick up on my energy, get stressed himself, and become even more crazy.
2. I use the Nothing in Life is Free (NILIF) program to teach him that he gets what he wants most, by doing work for me. In this way, he learns that positive behaviors lead to food, toys, and other resources.
3. I set my dog up for success and help him to associate people with *positive* events. The more successful encounters we have, the more confident he will be, and the more trust he will build towards people. Similarly, the more he performs an undesirable behavior, the more likely he will repeat it in the future.

Here is more on why dogs get aggressive over food and toys and how I deal with bad dog behaviors.

However, dog behavior and retraining is very context dependent, and depends a lot on the temperament of the dog, his background, his routine and environment, our own temperament, and more. To rehabilitate dog aggression issues, especially for a dog with a difficult past, it is often best to get help from a professional trainer.
http://www.apdt.com/petowners/choose/

My dogs also view smaller pieces of food differently than things like bully sticks and Greenies which are very high priority and which they get to chew on for a longer period of time. A small piece of food they will just eat it in one bite and there is nothing to guard. When I give my Shiba Inu a bully stick, he will run around trying to hide it under couches, or behind curtains.

What helps with my dogs is that I start training with very low priority food and toys. I get them used to giving up these things, and making positive associations with people. Then I very slowly increase the priority of the food or toy.

In the meantime, I don’t give them anything high priority that will trigger the aggressive behavior. The more they practice the behavior, the more likely they are to repeat it, and vice versa. The key with my dogs, is to keep them below their aggression threshold, so that the training sessions are successful, positive, and rewarding.

Each situation is different though, and dog training is very dependent on the temperament of the dog and surrounding context. In cases of aggression, it may be helpful to get help from a professional dog trainer.

Dogs are very opportunistic animals, especially when it comes to food. If a dog jumps on people, and he gets rewarded with food (whether freely given or not) he will keep repeating the behavior because it “works”. If a dog growls and bumps us, and we drop food for him, he will also see this as a reward, and keep repeating the behavior.

Dogs repeat behaviors that get them good results, for example, food, and stop behaviors that get them undesirable results.

I follow the Nothing in Life is Free program with my dogs. This means that before they get something that they want (e.g. food), they have to do something for me first. I also set up a consistent routine and a consistent set of rules. Dogs need structure, routine, and rules.

Given what you describe, it sounds like getting help from a professional trainer would be best. Dog training is very situational, and depends a lot on the dog’s temperament, environment, past experiences, past training, current routine, and more. The energy of the people around him and accurate timing, are also very important.

Here is a bit more background on how I trained my Siberian Husky and on how dogs learn.

I went through a similar thing with Sephy (Shiba Inu). He would always be picking up trash, off the street during our walks, so I would take the stuff away from him. After a while, he started to protect whatever items he picked up with growling, and air snaps. He would also twist his head away or push my hands away with his paws. If I had continued to take things away from him by force, he would likely have moved on to biting.

Here is a bit more on our experiences.

Here is a bit more on why dogs may get aggressive over food or objects.

In Sephy’s case, he started to get aggressive because he associated me coming near him with losing his stuff. The things that he got from the street smelled really good to him and they were things that he never got at home, so to him, they are very valued, high priority resources.

Some things that help with Sephy -
1. Prevention is better than cure.
I try to set Sephy up for success by preventing him from getting to the bad stuff in the first place. If he never gets to it, then he doesn’t try to protect it. The less he practices guarding, the less likely he will repeat the behavior. I also teach him the “Leave-It” command, so that I can tell him what to do, and reward him well for it. In this way, he knows what is ok to take, and what is not. Most importantly, by carefully managing him, I no longer have to take objects away from him by force, which was the main trigger that started his guarding behavior.

2. I follow the Nothing in Life is Free program.
This teaches Sephy that I am the source of good stuff and that he has to work for what he wants. This motivates him to come to me for resources, rather than try to keep me away using aggression.

3. Start small and set Sephy up for success.
In the beginning, Sephy did not know what “Drop-It” means, so I start training with a very low priority item, e.g. a toy that he is not very interested in. Therefore, he is very willing to give that up for pretty much anything else. This sets him up for success, and motivates him to willingly give objects over to me. Through repetition, he learns to associate the command “Drop-It” with giving objects over to me, and getting rewarded well for it, by me.

Once he gets better with very low priority items, then I can *very slowly* increase the challenge and use slightly higher priority objects. However, if I had started with a very high priority object in the first place, he would never want to give it up, he would continue to practice his guarding behavior, and he would not learn what I mean by “Drop-It”.

Note though, that Sephy never broke skin even when he made contact with my hand.

For more serious cases, it is best to get help from a professional trainer.

As for holding a dog down (also called an alpha roll), I also tried this with Sephy when he was young. In our case, it made things worse. Here is a bit more on alpha rolls and why it is risky.

Here is a bit more on how dogs learn.

thanks so much,
Nicole