mean at feeding time!

ken · Post by **ken** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 2:03 pm

my blue is a good dog however when it comes time to feeding he is down rite mean to my other hound..even broke blood on her the other day.. any suggestions!

MKT · Post by **MKT** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 2:20 pm

You may need to separate the two. Our hounds are good natured but don't get in the way at chow time!!
Mel

FullCryHounds · Post by **FullCryHounds** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 2:44 pm

I feed all my dogs together every day. They eat in seperate bowls but right next to each other. You have to be the master from the get go and not allow any aggessive behavior. If not taught from a young age, it could be very difficult to get it stopped. I don't put up with any aggessive behavior ever for any reason. Keeping all my dogs together I think actually helps keep the dogs from being mean toward each other. They all grow up together with the young pups and the pups take on the same attitude as the older dogs. When dogs are seperated by a fence, they seem to build up animosity and attitudes toward each other, especially if they have females around. When I kept dogs seperate, I had more problems. I haven't had a dog fight in the past 10 years since I keep them all together. I also don't keep any females around, just males.

ken · Post by **ken** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:02 pm

fullcryhounds,

ya that might be the prob.. the blue is male and the american fox is a female.. hate to get rid of her.. in fact the wife would prob kick my a&& !:oops:

I had the single male at first and brought in the female a few months later.

Melanie Hampton · Post by **Melanie Hampton** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 4:35 pm

I think what fullcryhounds meant is that if you have multiple males, a female normally brings out aggression in the males towards each other.. When she comes in heat, etc.. So he just runs males and they are not as many aggression problems.

You need to have a "come to jesus" meeting with your dog at feeding time. He needs to know that behavior is not tolerated. And let him know YOU are the boss and nobody does anything without your approval basically..

I just fed 5 hounds in the house side by side this morning (long story on why they were all in the house) and two are 6 month olds that inhale their food and think they are all starving and want to see if they can steal someone else's... Everyone ate their food and went back to their spots to sleep with no sideways glances at another dog. They all learn from little squirts that food aggression is the best way for a ass kicking..

ken · Post by **ken** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 4:52 pm

thanks mel!

MKT · Post by **MKT** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 5:05 pm

I should of offered more info as well...

We can feed our hounds in the house (long story as well), in the kennel or any were we put the food. We have a large kennel 25x25x16 that our hounds live in together. We feel a pack that lives together hunts better. Case in point, we cooned this summer with a guy who ties his hounds out and had to spend the better part of an hour dealing with dog fights and our hounds jumped out of the box and were ready to rock and roll. We only have females now and they have all been introduced as pups to the older hounds, we have no fighting at all. I argee with the coming to meet the maker plan, once is all it takes!

Mel

ken · Post by **ken** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 5:22 pm

Thanks to you as well MKT,

The two get along well as long as food isnt involved. I believe my blue was four months old when I received him.. he was the runt and I think to some degree thats why he is aggresive with food.. They feed side by side but when she gets near his bowl or bone he is very aggresive.. attacks her throat...etc. she will rarely do this but from time to time she does.

so does an a$$ kicking make him worse and more aggresive?

MKT · Post by **MKT** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 5:44 pm

Here is what I do: Put the bowls down and wait... quickly grab the scruff the the offender and shout NO or any other colorful phase that comes to mind. Leverage is helpful, you will only need to pick the hound up by and inch or two. I take the bowl a way and make the dog sit and give the food back. We always make the hounds sit for their food. I have only needed to repeat this once. Mind you that these are my husbands hounds.. as in I take care of them a ton while he is out of town working. Our hounds know that food can be given and taken at any time with no questions asked.

Melanie Hampton · Post by **Melanie Hampton** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 5:49 pm

ken wrote:
so does an a$$ kicking make him worse and more aggresive?

In my opinion, it sure shouldn't make him worse and or more aggressive. If he is smart, he is going to figure out that food aggression is a no no and it should be a done deal... If the discipline makes him more aggressive you are going to have bigger issues with him.. Again just my opinion.. You should need to get after him only as hard as it takes to get your point across. Some dogs, it takes a little more to see things from your view

Good luck..

FullCryHounds · Post by **FullCryHounds** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:22 pm

Take a look at what wolves do at the dinner table. The dominant one eats first and then the others. If one gets too eager, the dominant one throws him down and stands over him. Try it with your pup, it works very well with hounds too. He's trying to show his dominance. He'll get the idea that you are the dominant one and not him. It's very important that all your hounds understand who's dominant. You don't have to really kick thier butt real bad, just enough so they understand who's boss.

thomas · Post by **thomas** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 7:54 pm

It is my personall opinion and experiece that food fighting is best stopped with shock collars. The dogs don't relate you to curbing the bad behavior that canines carry in thier blood. I don't give them just a buzz either.

My dogs must be on top of thier boxes to get fed and the agressive males sometimes are kept apart so they don't steal food when I leave.

I never lay a ruff hand on my hounds and never have seen great succes
with doing so. I read a lot of posts about timid pups from so and so. Even though dogs arent directly beat they will see other dogs hit and become fearful.
Just as coyote pups cower when a dominate dog is around they have witnesed the fury put on other pack members.
I just put down a great dog because he took out his aggression out on other dogs, from being beat by a former owner. The training was to late and the damage was done. I gave him more love than any dog I have ever owned but he was too far along and too dangerous.

Shock collars make well behaved hounds. I say no when I use shock traing process but that's it. I hide the transmitter all of the time in my coat.
They respond so well to this method that thier is no resaon to use any other. I own a breed of dogs that have a reputation of comming from a long line of timid dogs. I am not convinced it is in thier blood I"ll bet they have been exposed to yelling and kicking.
This is only my opinion and it workes for me and I own aggresive dogs and I like that spirit. Do they get into spats of course they do but so do humans. If society wasn't so uptight I would use on my oldest boy and I have threatend him with it. I'm sure it would cut the learning curve in half. LOL

Montana_Red_Neck · Post by **Montana_Red_Neck** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 4:04 am

I have a bluetick male that had the same problem. As far as I can tell he learned this behavior from my brother's bird dog. We kept them in the same kennel, and she gets agressive with food. My brother laughs because he'll put his face next to her when she's eating and she growls.. never ever bit a person though... I still don't like it one bit of course. But he went to sniff her food and she put a K-9 through his nostril.. (I mean all the way through).. and ever since, he would growl at other dogs when they'd get close to his food. Here's my suggestion... be wary though..

See how your dog responds to you when you touch him or put hands on him while he's eating with NO other dogs around. I mean... grab his haunches and really move him around.. if he doesn't growl, grab his chest gently and pull him back from his food. He may or may not growl at you.. My pup did... so I'd scold him and take his food away for 1 or 2 hours and repeat. I did this for several days.. and even used pig ear chewies to do the same thing.

I was very confident my dog wouldn't bite me.. but you may not want to do this if your dog is more aggressive. Try this method and guage his response keeping a distance while you move him around... Then work him back into feeding with the other dog, and if he growls, take his food away again. Now, my dog will NOT be ill toward ANY dog or any person during feeding time. This method worked for him... Ill behavior with food means no food. Try it.. just see how it goes.

larry · Post by **larry** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 4:39 am

I can't imagine being concerned that a dog would bite or attack me over his/her food. That would be such a negligence in training from the begining. A .22 would fix that issue before it ever started. There is no excuse for that behavior in any dog. Don't make excuses for your dogs, make them act the way they should. You are the leader of that pack of dogs and as their leader it is your responsibility to enforce the law. If that were my dog I would not feed either one for a day and a half to 2 days, lay down some meat or something that they have to stay there and eat, not be able to grab and run, as soon as aggresion was showed 6 on the shocker, or the worst ass kicking that dog had ever had, and not gentle, til they stand there and eat with manners. That should be taught from early puppy age. Would you want to see that kind of manners over a dead bear or lion? Would you like to walk up to the tree with a dead dog waiting for you there?

Montana_Red_Neck · Post by **Montana_Red_Neck** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 4:59 am

The issue in my case was not dealing with aggression towards me.. it was towards other dogs. I would wager that any dog that shows aggression during feeding towards another dog will display some form of that behvior towards a person... even their owner. It's not rocket science.. it's thinking like a dog. The dog is posessive of its food. I have never been bitten or even close by any of my dogs... nor was I worried about my dog bitting me. But the growling was a display of annoyance. And dogs that display that trait can be dealt with in this matter. If a dog tried to bite me, I'd introduce it to the rifle barell. But a dog that shows aggression at feeding is not uncommon. And if it does it towards other dogs, it will usually let even the most dominant member of the pack know how it feels about being messed with at feeding time... so that means no food... and this behavior can be corrected.