Portia is 10 months old now. You'll recall from my post last month that we had an issue over a high value item. There hasn't been any more trouble until yesterday; she's a model citizen in every other way.
Lately, Portia has gotten into the habit of moping in front of her food bowl at meal time. Yesterday, my fianc* gently nudged her to go to her place while he filled her bowl and she growled and barked. Today, he accidentally put his food between her and the bowl reaching for something and she barked threateningly again.
I came in and tried to do some games to desensitize her -- I gave her extra food and stood near her. I give her high value treats while I was near her bowl, put those treats in her bowl and let her eat them, etc. The result was that she lunged at me multiple times, barked and growled. When I turned away to ignore her, she pursued me into the other room, and put her open mouth on me to the point I could feel her teeth. That happened twice. I feel like if I had turned to face her to tell her no, she would have bitten me for real.
We have always played NILIF with her food, had lots of praise and treats at mealtime, and never taken away her food while she was eating. In short, there's nothing I feel like as owners we did to generate this behavior, and it really looks to me like it came out of the blue.
I'm having a hard time feeling like we are going to be able to manage her at this point, especially as she gets older and stronger. My understanding is that threatening an owner in that way requires a lot of work from experienced handlers to undo. What are your thoughts?
Lately, Portia has gotten into the habit of moping in front of her food bowl at meal time. Yesterday, my fianc* gently nudged her to go to her place while he filled her bowl and she growled and barked. Today, he accidentally put his food between her and the bowl reaching for something and she barked threateningly again.
I came in and tried to do some games to desensitize her -- I gave her extra food and stood near her. I give her high value treats while I was near her bowl, put those treats in her bowl and let her eat them, etc. The result was that she lunged at me multiple times, barked and growled. When I turned away to ignore her, she pursued me into the other room, and put her open mouth on me to the point I could feel her teeth. That happened twice. I feel like if I had turned to face her to tell her no, she would have bitten me for real.
We have always played NILIF with her food, had lots of praise and treats at mealtime, and never taken away her food while she was eating. In short, there's nothing I feel like as owners we did to generate this behavior, and it really looks to me like it came out of the blue.
I'm having a hard time feeling like we are going to be able to manage her at this point, especially as she gets older and stronger. My understanding is that threatening an owner in that way requires a lot of work from experienced handlers to undo. What are your thoughts?