Possessive behaviour over toys

[smithy]

The other day, we got Smithy a new toy and he loved it. When I went near him today, he growled at me (not necessarily too badly). To test it was the toy, I slowly went towards it and he growled again.

 

When we did some of our training just now, I brought out the toy at the end and gave him some treats as I took it away, then put it back and did the same thing. His behaviour was very weird, and he's definitely possessive of the toy.

 

Is this something we need to watch for, and what should I do to prevent it escalating?

[greysmom]

Resource guarding can be of anything a dog thinks is high value.  Obviously, your dog thinks this toy is the BOMB!!! and doesn't want anyone taking it away from him.  This is *extremely* common behavior.

First of all, don't punish him for growling.  It's one of the only (vocal) ways a dog has to tell us what they are thinking.  If you try and extinguish the growl the dog will just learn to skip over it and escalate to the next level of expressing himself, which is normally using his mouth to nip or bite.

The easiest thing to do with a resource guarder is to "trade up" when you need to take a high value treat away.  Lure him away from the toy with a food treat that is higher in value than the toy - a big piece of meat or cheese, or whatever your dog thinks is really super duper great.  When he leaves the toy, pick it up and put it out of sight.

The *best* way to deal with resource guarding is to train either/both a "drop it" and/or "leave it" command.  That way you can have a reliable way to remove dangerous objects or just when you need a squeaky break.  There are numerous, good videos out there for teaching this command(s).  

Good luck!

[HeyRunDog]

It depends on how good you are at reading your dog. It could be a playful growl where he wants you to grab it then put it back so he can grab it again or it could be a warning growl. Grace will lie with a toy between her front paws wanting me to try and grab it before she does giving a growl as she beats me to it. I only do it three or four times so she doesn't get over excited and forgets it's only a game.

If you are not sure trade up as greysmom says.