# Pug, a food aggression problem



## IzzitAnn (Jan 27, 2012)

Hi! I'm hoping to get a little advice to solve a food aggression problem. Here is precisely what is happening:

I adopted a black lab/ blue heeler back in september. Her name is Piper and she's about a year old. She can be quite the puppy still, bouncy and playful, but for the most part she's pretty calm and learns quite fast. I need to train her several times a day in basic obedience and her jobs- hearing assistance and a few other things to keep her busy. A bored cattle dog is big trouble. She is pretty focused and learns quickly for a peanut butter treat. 

The person I live with owns two dogs, but the one causing the ruckus is Yoda, the pug. Yoda is unreasonably food aggressive towards the other dogs. In general he is very "alpha". He likes to pee in the house to mark, for example. He's never been mistreated and he is neutered. He will sit and wait for his food at meal time- he isn't aggressive towards people. If I feed Yoda in the same room as the other dogs, he will gobble his food quickly, then launch his cinder block shaped self at one of the other dogs to steal their food. If I attempt to train Piper with a treat without fencing him off, he attacks her relentlessly. 

Because of this aggression, Piper has gotten a bit snappy about treats. She won't take them nicely, she kind of lunges a little bit and occansionally catches my finger(s) with her teeth. She also is getting a little too intent on stealing things, particularly bones, which she runs out side and buries. I'm worried she might develop some other social problems if this goes on. I have tried working with Yoda seperately, but his problem isn't with people controlling food, so I don't think it's helping much. 

I have thought about training Piper with a toy instead of a treat, but she is responding much better to the treat than a ball or a squeaky. For now, I have been doing the majority of her training while on walks, well away from Yoda. When I do work with her at home, I have to put up a baby gate to fence him off. The gate isn't at all convinient because I'd like to ask Piper to do things through out the day.

So here are my questions:
1. How do I get this pug to realize food isn't all there is to life? He's totally obsessed.
2. Should I train Piper with something besides food to avoid the whole problem? If so, how do I transition between a treat reward to a toy one effectively? 
3. Could nutrition be making this worse? Right now Piper is on a mix of Puppy chow and a salmon/veggie/potato food I make. Yoda and the other doggy are on Dog Chow and the same salmon food. 
4. Piper is quite a bit larger than Yoda and one of these days she's gonna take a chomp outta him for attacking her. Since Yoda is "the alpha" how can I convince Piper he is, despite the fact he's kinda dumb and far less athletic. Should I convince her he is? If I demote Yoda, I'm afraid he'll either get more aggressive or fall into a pathetic slulmp when he realizes he isn't god. He's got a huge ego for a little fuzzball.

Any advice about this situation is appreciated! This is my first time trying to do anything with a pug and I'm not having much success.


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## doxiemommy (Dec 18, 2009)

Wow. Ok, here are my thoughts about your questions:

1. Lots of dogs are obsessed with food. My two are. The problem as I see it is, the pug is ALLOWED to behave badly. He's not using good manners. Has his owner done any training of him at all? Has his owner attempted to work on his food issues?
You can work on it with the pug, BUT, only if his owner is on board, so that everyone is on the same page, because consistency is important.

The first thing I'd do is to ALWAYS feed them separately. Many people have to feed their dogs separately, it's not a big deal. 
Second, is the pug's owner home when you are training your dog? I would seriously consider having the pug's owner take him on a walk when you're training, or take him in another room. 

Then, I'd work with the pug, without your dog around. I'd suggest checking out the stickies about "Doggy Zen" and "NILIF". They are in the sticky sections at the top of the forum pages, and help teach manners and impulse control.

As for your dog: you can use the same techniques from those stickies, and also work on "trading up." Do a search on the forum and you will find a lot of info on "trading up", which basically lets your dog know that she doesn't have to be protective of her food or bones, as you will TRADE something better for them. 

2. What you train with depends on what Piper is motivated by. If she isn't motivated by toys, it won't work to train her with toys. If she isn't motivated with praise or cuddles, it won't work to train her with praise or cuddles. She HAS to really VALUE what you train her with, so she sees it as a reward that she really WANTS to have.
You can try a toy, but it may not work. And, you want what works, right?

In my opinion, it's better to just manage the environment and train her separately. I have to do that, too, and none of my dogs are aggressive or guard food. I have to do it because they will try to outdo each other with the commands and attention if I don't.

3. Nutrition can affect mood and behavior, in that if your body isn't properly fueled it can be hard to be your best. Puppy Chow is not a really high quality food, neither is Dog Chow. You always want actual meat to be the first in the list of ingredients, not rice or grain or a byproduct. You are adding to the chow, I know, but, it's highly possible that the kibble you feed is high in fillers, which is kind of wasted space.
But, nutrition, IMO, wouldn't cause a dog to attack another dog for their food. That's bad training for letting it continue and bad manners on the dog's part.

4. The alpha/demoting stuff is silly. Dogs in the same household DO have a hierarchy of sorts, but YOU can't demote Yoda. You aren't really in charge of the hierarchy. It's based on how the other dogs in the household view each other. And, really, it doesn't sound like Yoda is trying to be dominant, so much as it sounds like he's rude and poorly trained, and perhaps under exercised.

Really, in my opinion, managing the situation should be first on your list of things to do. Stop letting the pug behave badly, the easiest way is by doing all food related things AWAY from the pug. 
After you stop this behavior by separating them, THEN you can work with the dogs separately.


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## IzzitAnn (Jan 27, 2012)

I do feed them seperately. Yoda eats in the kitchen and piper and the other dog eat in the living room. Piper and the other dog get scrappy at all, they totally leave each other alone at food time. When theyre done eating and I take the gate down, the first thing Yoda does is grruff and nose into the empty food dishes. 

I don't know much about pugs, but he does get some exercise. He plays fetch with rope toys. I'm not sure how to *stop* him from attacking at treat training though. I even went so far as to try the ol' squirt bottle. I guess I could kennel him for a few hours a day rather than mess with the kiddie gate. 

I'll read that Trading up thread right now! 

My roomie has trained the pug a bit. He sits and knows shake and waits for his dinner politely as long as he's alone in the kitchen. She just works all day and I don't so it's reasonable for me to work with Yoda while she's out. His food issue is only a problem because of my training Piper.


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## doxiemommy (Dec 18, 2009)

The way to stop him from attacking for the training treats is to train Piper without the pug around. That should be the first step. Prevent the rude behavior by not having him around at the time.

And, you don't need to crate the pug for hours. Really, several SHORT training sessions with Piper are best, so that neither you nor she get frustrated or lose focus. So, just crate the pug for 10 minutes, 4-5 times a day so you can work with Piper.

Playing fetch isn't really enough exercise, at least one walk daily would be a start, for 30 minutes. Plus, the play.


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## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

Alpha is . . . well, just forget it. I could write a dissertation on this. The pug isn't alpha, he's rude and he needs to be managed. I'm not even sure he's the cause of Piper's "snappiness". Kabota is not food aggressive and not at all inclined to bite anyone, but until I trained him to be careful, he'd get my fingers along with any treat I gave him. Most dogs aren't naturally gentle about grabbing treats. An easy way to deal with it is feed her the treat from your open palm, not dangling from your fingers, and practice "it's yer choice" (there's a sticky in this forum explaining it) to create impulse control.

A few games of fetch is not exercise for a dog. That pug needs at least two walks a day, probably an hour of walking total. It would really help his behavior.


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## Bordermom (Apr 28, 2010)

Get the roomie to walk the pug in the morning before work, then put the pug in her bedroom with the door shut for a few hours while you get your stuff done and train. Then let the pug out for a bit, maybe a walk, then back into the bedroom. I think the marking alone would drive me up the wall, ick!

The pug sounds like he doesn't have much in the form of manners; if you or the roomie don't teach him, the other dogs will. And even still, they may have to do it so he respects them.


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