Here's What You Should Do If Your Dog Is Possessive About Their Toys

When a dog growls as you attempt to get their toys, they are performing a kind of resource-guarding. Experts aren’t quite sure what makes some dogs engage in this sort of behavior. Here’s what you can do about it.

Step 1: Get assistance

It’s a good idea to speak to a professional dog trainer if your dog is very fierce about resource-guarding. You may not know how to show them you’re not going to steal their resources.

Step 2: Play carefully

During the training period, your dog will need time to absorb and learn new methods, so playtimes must be careful. Play with more than one toy when enjoying fetch. Throw one, wait for them to come back, let them drop the first toy, then throw the second one and pick the first one up. You can also find other methods of exercise that don’t need toys, like runs or hide-and-seek.

Step 3: Don’t try to take their things

For now, while you wait for training to take root, you must not try to snatch items back from your dog. This can cause them to bite you. Instead, grab a high-value toy or favorite item to fetch and use that as a trade. Then, when they are distracted by the other toy and are a safe distance away, take the discarded item.

Feature Image Source: Pixabay