# My puppy growls and bites over her meals



## Buddy's mom forever (Jun 23, 2011)

Bumping up.


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## mylissyk (Feb 25, 2007)

Feed her all her meals by hand, or drop a few bites of her regular food in the bowl at a time, she eats the few bites and looks up at you, then you drop a few more bites into her bowl. Feed her the full meal that way, every day for quite a while.

Or start walking by and dropping a really yummy piece of food next to her bowl while she is eating, something really great that she only gets when you walk by her bowl when is eating. Practice that for a couple of weeks, until she acts like she sees you near her food as a good thing.

The idea is to teach her that you being near her food is a good thing, when you approach she gets yummy treats, or when you are there she gets her food. 

Make it an "all good things come from you" type of idea.


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## vcm5 (Apr 20, 2011)

Good advice! It sounds like people are getting hurt because of this situation, and it has the potential to be really dangerous. Have you perhaps spoken to a trainer or behaviorist about these issues?


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## Elisabeth Kazup (Aug 23, 2008)

Is there a particular reason why people have to be touching the pup while it eats?

Penny's bowl is in the laundry room. We put her food in her bowl and walk away. It takes about 5 minutes and she's done.

If your pup doesn't have any guarding issues with anything else, I would say leave her alone when she's eating. Unless resource guarding is a problem in other areas, she will no doubt outgrow this behavior.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

All six of mine, eat side by side, no one gets into their food bowls when they are eating. When my two boys, now twenty and eighteen were younger, I merely kept them away when the dogs were eating.... Why bother an eating dog. I also have perfect confidence that if I had to take a bowl away (for what reason?), I could... Mine are left alone when eating..as Penny's Mom said...


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

You've gotten excellent advice here. All will be well if you put a few of these techniques into practice. Dropping extra good things in her bowl and hand feeding do work well, and not buggin her as management means she won't practice her resource guarding, which is good.


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