My husband and I have an 11 week old female Boykin Spaniel pup. We took her home at 8 weeks from a reputable breeder. We were very prepared for the puppy insanity, and overall things are going really well. We're doing lots of training, and are especially dedicated to the prevention of possessive tendencies/resource guarding after a really traumatic experience with a previous dog.
However: I'm worried that our past experience and trauma has made us too careful/paranoid around potential guarding situations, and I don't want to inadvertently cause guarding issues because we're over rotating on the prevention.
My main question: how should we be handling low- to mid-value bones and toys around the house?
So far, we've been keeping toys out of reach unless we're playing with one together. We want them to be high value items so she's excited to play with us. We've got a good game of tug trained, with a pretty reliable "out" where she drops the toy (as long as we have cheese for a trade). We've been keeping bones out of reach unless one of us is holding it for her to chew, and we have 1-2 crate safe bones that live in her crate. For meals, we hand feed/train or feed her in her crate, and we're doing exercises with the food bowl to create positive associations with us being near it. All of that is going great.
In the last week or so, we've been letting her play with bones (Nylabones and Benebones, nothing super high value) around the house on her own. I realized that by keeping them all out of reach, we were potentially increasing the value of these bones…and that maybe if they're available all the time, they'll be less valuable (and she'll be less likely to guard them).
As for toys, we have 1-2 softer tug toys that we play tug with. I never leave her alone with these, mostly for safety because I don't want her to chew them and swallow small pieces of fabric. But she's started to figure out where we keep these, and definitely took note today when I put her favorite purple cow tug toy away after a game of tug, and I can feel that she's like: "but wait a minute, why can't I have it all the time?"
I also know Spaniels are literally bred to hold things in their mouths…but after watching her carry a few of her Nylabones around the house, I am just so paranoid now that she'll start guarding one. I also know that dogs can smell adrenaline/tell when someone's nervous, so I don't want to accidentally cause guarding behaviors because I'm freaking out over nothing.
Are we going about things the right way? Should we take these bones back and keep them exclusive (available only in the crate or with us), or does that just make them more valuable and increase her chances of guarding?
submitted by /u/useless-worm
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