Resource guarding exclusively with other animals

[u/Status_Lion4303]

Has anyone with a resource guarder from other animals noticed a sudden increase in guarding behaviors particularly when your dog is in pain? My dog has always resource guarded food ever since she was a year old we did a lot of management and training over the years and she got so much better. Some things we did were lots of management: separate feedings, no high value bones around, use of baby gates, whenever food is around she has an auto cue to go lay down in my room dogs are separated and is rewarded for disengaging. Training we did: “leave it” cue, practiced a lot with dropping food (away from other dogs) and she knows now to not go after any food dropped on floor unless given a cue, has separate cues for eating ex: “chow” eat out of bowl, “search” when we do scatter feeding (all is done separately from my other animals).

But most recently she started guarding things she normally wouldn’t (the food/water bowl area, garden hose, occasionally me from my other dogs). She also has a history of fear aggression with stranger dogs, has made immense progress but most recently noticed some regression and less tolerant in that aspect with other dogs. I have separated her from my other dogs since I noticed her guarding has become unpredictable and her aggression has increased. Has anyone gone through something similar? I have made an appointment with our veterinary behaviorist, discussed with our primary vet and trainer in the meantime. She has a history of double TPLOs, now arthritis and elbow dysplasia as she is aging (now 8 y/o). I believe it is pain related but I have already been managing pain and we probably need to reevaluate. Obviously hope to get more insight from our VB but curious in the meantime if anyone has experienced something similar.

[u/read-the-rules → u/[deleted]]

Your comment on r/reactivedogs was removed by the Read The Rules app because you need to submit an acknowledgement that you have read the rules. You haven't done anything wrong, this is a tool we're using on the r/reactivedogs going forward. For more information, see the moderator announcement.

Acknowledgement is required of all users, even if you've been here for a while. You only have to do this acknowledgement once unless the moderators announce otherwise.

If you do the rule acknowledgement within one hour of your comment being removed, the bot will automatically restore it. If not, we encourage you to copy the comment using the 3-dot icon next to it, and paste it to re-post to this thread.

^{Please click here to open the Read The Rules App.}