A very challenging problem that can occur with any dog is food possessiveness. That means that the dog thinks that the food is his and you may take it away so he has to protect it. Of course your dog is not born this way which means that the behavior has been taught with time, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

A big concern with food possessiveness is the potential danger that the dog may snap at the dog owner or worse at their kids. Sometimes dog owners are busy people and they forget that dogs view their kids as other dogs. When a kid is crawling around on the floor and is playing with the dog food bowl, the dog only sees another dog trying to get his food. So this is a very important topic that should be thought of and properly handled to prevent potential problems.

There are several methods to stop this behavior. The first thing that you should do as a dog owner is regulate the amount of food that is available to your dog at one time. You should feed him twice a day and if there is anything left in his food bowl after 10 min., then you should take it away. There is no point to letting your dog eat whenever he wants to.

The second thing that I highly recommend that every dog owner do, is while you're dog is eating his dinner, to walk to his food bowl and drop a couple of treats in it. It has to be something that he values highly so that he learns that when you walk up to his food bowl something pleasurable is going to happen. The last thing that you want to do is take away the food bowl while the dog is still eating, as that will teach him the opposite: that you come to take the food away.

If you have leftovers that are good enough for dogs, then you can use that instead of treats which will be even better. For example, when I make a beef stew I sometimes keep just a little bit so that I can practice this exercise with my dogs.

If you've never trained this exercise before, I recommend that you do this every day for one week. It's a very simple thing to do since your dog will be eating every day anyways, you might as well use this as a training opportunity.

Practicing this exercise will help tremendously down the line. If you have a puppy, then this is an even better opportunity to train. Get your family involved! Ask them to practice the same exercise with you, and with a variety of treats. I would recommend that you do this with everyone in your family under, your supervision of course.

If you think that your dog is uncomfortable with the exercise, you can leave treats nearby his food bowl instead of in it. Don't worry, he'll know that there are treats nearby and he'll get them whether during or after his dinner.