Bone aggression?

It's a long drive to my in-laws,we usually go once every couple of months. They have 2 **** Tzus :) These little dogs tolerate Maggie but they do not adore her :rolleyes: I have brought toys down and food has been left on the floor but no aggression whatsoever. I got Maggie a bone for thanks giving and gave it to her down stairs where the little dogs don't go. I forgot about the bone after a while and went to make a snack and Maggie followed me up.

When I was upstairs she went back down grabbed her bone and ran around with it. She dropped it to check something else out and when she went back for the bone she saw Angel wings (the female shih) chewing on it and staring her down. Maggie grabbed Angel wings by the neck and held her in the air, until I took the bone away and hollered at her to drop her, which she did right away.

The reason why I say "Grab" instead of bite (even though that's probably closer to what it was in dog world) is because when Maggie put her down, AW was calm and had no puncture wounds or anything. Maggie could have easily killed or severly hurt AW but didn't. She made a tiny growl at Maggie but she walked and acted normally, they were also fine for the rest of our visit.

What I'm wondering is, should I be concerned in the future of Maggie having a bone around other dogs? In your opinion if AW had her own bone would they still have had a fight? My mother in-law told me this is a dog thing and not to worry about it, just keep the bones away next time.

I just feel bad that there was a tiff about bones, is this common?

Very common occurance. This type of food agression is certainly not uncommon. Though you can curve this type of behaviour - it can still rear it's ugly head. I always advise NO BONES - but that is just me.

Is this type aggression only with animals or is this equally a problem with humans?

Just Animals, and the first time I ever seen it. I take bones away all the time from her, sometimes mid chew and it's never been a problem, she just goes and plays with something else.

That's good then. Are bones important for you to give? If so, then there is a way to curb this behaviour - but you must always watch for any danger signs.

This is really common. A bone is considered a "high-value" item for many dogs and can be the source of skirmishes even in otherwise peaceful dogs. We generally avoid real "bones" in our house for this reason...there may be showing of teeth or growling with rawhides/pig ears etc, but never any fighting. I wouldn't be terribly concerned about it if humans (is it just you or anyone?) can take high-value items away without issues. I would simply avoid the situation by not having bones around with multiple dogs.

This is really common. A bone is considered a "high-value" item for many dogs and can be the source of skirmishes even in otherwise peaceful dogs. We generally avoid real "bones" in our house for this reason...there may be showing of teeth or growling with rawhides/pig ears etc, but never any fighting. I wouldn't be terribly concerned about it if humans (is it just you or anyone?) can take high-value items away without issues. I would simply avoid the situation by not having bones around with multiple dogs.

I aswell do not have bones in my home. The only thing I do do however with dogs that have food bowl aggression with animals is to feed closer and closer to one another everyday. It works like a charm.

Bones however - I can never fully trust.

It's not really a need thing. I just give it to her every once and a while. This particular bone was on sale and I did not give her one for a while so I thought " why not?" . I feel a lot better now, it makes sense it's a "high value" item and that's why there was an incident. She can easily eat beside another dog or be touched while eating so it boggled me when the bone thing happen.

Thanks guys :grouphug: :thumbs up

When I do evaluations on dogs - this is one of the things that I test for. High value items are infact bones, rawhides and sometimes even toys (if I am told there is a problem).

I can tell you that almost always there is a slight problem....so don't feel so bad - it's pretty much normal that this happened...acceptable - no, but normal.