Re: jester question

[Gina Heitz <brier@oregonsbest.com>]

HI Troy and All,

Troy sent this note to the list by error was meant for me privately but hey 
it's ok, no harm done, good topic for discussion and sharing.  Jester is a 
very quiet submissive puppy normally is my take,  (he was here).  In this 
case he had something he just didn't want to let go of.  He is a dog and 
dogs do feel they need to protect their food. While it's important to 
always be able to take anything away from your dog some times they just 
don't like it.  What Jester did was to exhibit normal dog dominance just 
like Hunter did when he snapped snarled and growled at Carol and the 
children over his food bowl.  Hunter however is a dominate dog...  More on 
him later! <smile>

  With even the most submissive of dogs food is often an issue.  The one 
thing they just don't want to share easily. Personally I don't blame 
them.  I hate it when anyone tries to take my food and I grouse at them for 
it.... Don't you?  Anyway lets not humanize this and take a look at dogs as 
dogs.

Forget your dog is a Golden Retriever.  He is a canine.  Canines only have 
one thing that truly belongs to them.  FOOD!  It is important to humanize 
canines to have them act as responsible family members and this is why we 
do all the things we do with them like take away food and toys obedience 
training ect..  However, you can not expect them to just roll over on 
everything.  Because a dog is a GR we expect them to act a certain way 
because they are a gentle breed.  They are still dogs.  These dogs are 
puppies and still learning what is acceptable behavior and what is 
not.  Personally if I had been there I would have cleaned Jesters clock. 
Taken the food away by force and gone about pretending it was mine and 
after a bit returning it to him only I would not have taken it away again 
or replaced it with a diffrent food this time around, I would have let it 
go and made a note to revise my training session next time and take the 
food several times if need be.

I disagree that Jester went into submissive posture here:

 >> As he was eating it we were petting him as we often do, and he really 
growled and snapped.  after he snapped he stood up and went into the 
submissive position (looked this up in the puppy book) with his tail 
between his legs and bent over and continued to eat. <<

Submissive posture is not standing with tail between the legs.  This was 
protective posture in my opinion.  He was hovering over the food protecting 
it with his body.  Submissive posture is down on the ground on the side or 
on the back.  Anything less is either cowering or dominance, testing...


On this part: goes along with above taking food more than once...

 >>We had already taken the leg away from him once with no reaction, and 
couldn't understand why the snottyness now. <<

Well quite honestly you messed with his food once, he let you have it and 
he was just tired of you messing with his food.  Even the submissive 
omega's in the pack get to eat...   I also bet when you take things form 
him you have set a pattern of you take them once and then call it 
good.  Going back in for a second time was not the norm and he just said 
NO!   I would work on this with some other object besides food and graduate 
up to food.  Take a toy away several times then when he is ok with that try 
it with food again.

So in short I don't think that Troy and Christy have any huge issue to 
worry about with Jester but appreciate their concern and commitment to 
investigation into what should we do this is not acceptable to us.

Gina


At 06:43 PM 7/9/00 +0000, you wrote:
>Had a wierd thing happen today with jester.  We got him a big turkey 
>drumstick at the store today.  As he was eating it we were petting him as 
>we often do, and he really growled and snapped.  after he snapped he stood 
>up and went into the submissive position (looked this up in the puppy 
>book) with his tail between his legs and bent over and continued to 
>eat.  Both of us were shocked, as we have always pet him and taken food 
>away from him and given it back, and wondered what to do.  We had already 
>taken the leg away from him once with no reaction, and couldn't understand 
>why the snottyness now.  He always lets us stand over his back and is 
>submissive to us everytime.  I decided to get the leg from him and replace 
>it with a chicken wing to see if he would have the same reaction.  he did 
>not want to give up the leg, and it was almost like he didn't even see us 
>there.  never looked at us, only the leg.  after I got it away (used the 
>hose on the ground in front of him as a little persuasion)I made him sit 
>for the wing, and gave it to him.  both of us pet him and we each took the 
>wing away twice without a peep or growl from jester, even though he was 
>really into eating it.  can you give us some insight on this or tell us if 
>we should be concerned?  He had never had anyhing that big before, could 
>that have something to do with it?
>
>troy
>
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