Our 5 month old Akita puppy has been becoming increasingly territorial over food for about the last 6 weeks, my boyfriend and I do the things advised in books but it does not appear to be improving - hopefully you dog owners out there will have some words of wisdom?

Since he was about 7 or 8 weeks old we have made him do tricks before he is allowed to eat (the NILF principle), which he does quite happily. Since he was about 3 months old we have been able to get him to sit and wait for a release command before he will go to his food, and then we sit with him and either stroke him while he is eating or just make sure he is not eating alone. About 6 weeks ago he started to growl when I stroked him while he was eating, then a couple of days later he did it with my boyfriend too. At first we ignored him, or shouted at him to shush, then we started to take his food away if he growled. He would have a couple of minutes time out, then we'd give it back (after he had done tricks again).

However, taking food away definitely seemed to make it worse - we had a couple of escalating incidents when the puppy had to be completely removed from the living area of the house as the barking and snarling was verging on scary. He was facing up to my boyfriend and showing teeth - not ideal at 16kg, let alone at his expected fully grown weight of 130kg!!

We are now trying to make dinner time more pleasant - as we realised meeting aggression with force will not work with this Akita. We get him to sit back from his food (which he will do on voice command) and we will give him some cheese instead, or hide cheese in his bowl. He seems to like this better but this morning when my boyfriend fed him he growled when i walked past and when i stopped to pet him he hunched over his food and started barking into his bowl. I'm not convinced any of these methods are working, as he still warns us away when feeding.

We have tried eliminating meal times altogether and feeding his whole meal by hand (for tricks) and moving his bowl into the living room so he eats in front of us. He is getting quite big now and we would like to eliminate this behaviour asap - any tips? He has had obedience training, attended puppy classes and is well socialised - we are looking into trainers but the only ones in our area are agility trainers.

My one dog was like this, she was 1 yr when we picked her out, it did not start until about 2 wks later.

What we did was take the bowl away when she was eating, if she growled we told her a firm No.

Repeated it again and again, sat the bowl up on the counter, tried 1/2 hr later and so on, she finally understood she was not to growl at us, we had to do the same thing once we gave her bones. The agression may have been from the shelter we got her from.

You no doubt have tried this, but I wish you all the luck, I had an Akita a white one, great dogs !

[Yogi]

you seem to be roughly on the right track. By placing only a small amount into the bowl and letting him eat until he is done then placing more in there he will soon discover that his behavior and not growling will lead to more food. You will need to be there next to him while he is eating which in turn he then associates you with the bowl and should eventually understand that you are not a threat but are the provider of the food.

The NILIF principle is fine, but it should end there .I would not stroke while eating, I thinks this aggravates the food aggression. And as you have seen, taking the food bowl away makes it worse because you enforce the reason he is growling in the first place. After all, would you like to be repeteadly touched while you eat or rather have your food taken away?

Rather, leave him alone to eat.It seems from your description that you and your partner seem to want to test him too much. If you really want to test him, toss a treat if you must walk by. I do not know how many owners I hear that make food aggression worse by harassing dogs while they eat just to ''test'' them. This includes, stroking, walking repeatedly by and giving attention when all the dog wants to do is eat undistrurbed. I know you want to trust your dog at all times, but sometimes by testing all the time the contrary results surface.

I just think you are over doing it, apply the NILIF and then let your dog eat in peace. The best way to over come food aggression is to have the dog associate you with some thing good not something annoying. All you can do is toss a treat every now and then when you pass by so he associates your presence with something good rather than seeing you as a menace to his privacy. Don't constantly linger around his food bowl, just to see how he does. Give a bit space and see if it gets better. It may take some time to trust you againn since you were using wrong approaches (taking food bowl away, stroking while eating, which is hard to understand for a dog and in it's eyes may seem as if you were trying to reach for his food instead). If you must pass by, toss a treat. At the end he will be looking at you for a tasty treat as you come near instead than growling!

More tips on food aggression; http://www.bestpethomeremedies.com/d...ggression.html