Help! RAW is making puppy food aggressive

[ThreeColors]

hello everyone....I have two adult labs that are on the RAW diet, and when I switched them over years ago, this forum was lots of help with all my questions.

I recently decided to adopt a puppy I had been fostering from the Lab rescue I work for. She has been in my home for 6 or 7 weeks, she was on kibble all this time, showed absolutely no toy/food/possession aggression....I havent even heard her bark yet. She is a great puppy, very smart, and we practice NILIF with her.

Well last night, she had her first raw meal, a chicken quarter, in her crate, where shes always eaten, and after a few licks of it, she immediately started growling, snarling and her hackles went up. She was watching my dogs who were in the kitchen, she was in another room, the dinning room.

Anyway, it scared me cause I never saw her like that, and when I switched my 2 labs over, I never had this problem.

From what I can tell, she isnt growling at me, I can walk by the crate. I make her sit before she eats and then I put the bowl in her crate and she doesnt try and bite me or anything.

I guess my question is, is this normal? What do I do?

The rescue and myself, think she is a lab/pit mix, and one of my friends told me I shouldnt feed her raw if she has pit in her, and I thought that sounded ridiculous and now I dont know LOL

Here is a pic of her....



I waited for her to finish her meal and look to me to let her out of her crate last night, and when she did I let her out and she was fine, seems after the food was gone, so was the attitude.

If this diet is going to bring that out in her, maybe I should leave her on kibble?

[Fallriver]

This is not a raw problem, it is a resource guarding problem. The difference is, the raw is high value enough that he feels the need to guard it. You could feed kibble and convince yourself that the problem has gone away, but the next time he finds food or an object that is also high value, you will have the same problem and he might just escalate to bite. I would take care of this now and you can easily do so.

I recommend purchasing MINE! by Jean Donaldson. It is a cheap little paperback that will help you teach your dog to relax during meal times. Resource guarding is a bit trickier to deal with when it is directed at other dogs and not humans, but both are manageable and ultimately 'treatable' with proper environment and lots of reinforcement!

[ThreeColors]

Thanks for the suggestion!

I fed her tonight from my hands and she was fine until one of my dogs walked up and then she started barking at her, to get away.

Ill pick the book up.

[sarah]

agree with Fallriver 100%. It's not the food it's the value of the object. Happy reading!