Luke is growling when in crate with frozen kong

I've only recently noticed the behavior over the past few days.
He's not super into toys.
He'll chew on his nylabones, but for now, toys are safe to keep out because they are not NEAR the value as food items are to him.

Think of it like this also. Horses, out on the praire or in a big pasture where there is grass all over the place don't tend to resource guard their food. If one horse comes up near another, they generally will move over or go to another area. Only in barns and places where food isn't everywhere do you notice horses squabbling over food. The trick in dogs, is to make them believe that food is abundant...that they WILL get food, that it won't be taken away, but instead something bigger and better...more abundant will come to them upon your approach. Just some food for thought.

It sounds like your trainer is great -- and I'm so glad she has so much experience with resource guarding.

You are such a good dog mom.

Yes, she is! She's covering all bases to give herself and her dog the best chance...being very responsible. Kudos!

Thanks, guys. I just hope it works.

He's such an AWESOME dog other than the resource guarding.
SUCH a lovebug.

And I can train both him and Ophie next to each other with treats without issue.

It's just SUPER high value items.

And, yes, I'm doing something about it. My trainer told me that she's had sooo many clients simply ignore the behavior and say, "Well, we just make sure we don't take things away from him."

And she's like, "huh? Really?"

And since I have children, we have established that a resource guarder is NOT ideal for my household.
So...this treatment better work.
And I have to MAKE it work.

Wish me luck!!!!!

It will work, Becca Largely because Luke is happy there and wants to please you. Most of the time it's a matter of figuring out how to communicate and teaching them what flies and what doesn't. You'll get there, and you're catching it and calling him on it at exactly the right time -- the beginning.

Thanks, guys!

She came over yesterday (then stayed longer than I had anticipated and then I had to rush to the dentist for my appt.), and she had copied a few pages for me from "Mine!".

We started out very low value items.
We started with a nylabone.
Since Luke wanted to follow us wherever we went (since the nylabone means nothing to him), we had to leash him, and my husband held the leash.
Trainer left the room.
Came back, tossed a treat, Luke got treat, trainer took nylabone as Luke got the treat.
Then gave it back to him.
Rinse and repeat.
Then we went to rope toy.
No interest, really.
Rinse and repeat with treat and trade.
Then on to orbee ball.
Rinse repeat.
Then on to a fish stick chewy.
rinse repeat, not much interest.

Then we smeared a little bit of peanut butter onto the end of the fish stick.
He got interested in it then, but we had been working for an hour or so on such low value items, that he was already anticipating us coming into the room, so he wanted the treats we would toss at him.

But then came the empty kong.
Then the kong with peanut butter smeared a little around the edges of the hole (something just so he gets into it and it holds his interest).

We did that one for a while, and he had no issues, what-so-ever.
In fact, by the last time we did it, when Ben walked in the room, he looked up from the kong in anticipation at him.

So, good news is, that it seems to be going FABULOUSLY so far. I know it was only once, but Luke is already making the "Humans=good stuff/better stuff than what I have currently" connection.
We ended that session on that note.

And we will work with him daily, no high value items, I am hand-feeding (taught him "take", and I make him work for his food, and I had to start using smaller handfuls because he INHALES his food.), and we will be remaining with things he's not growling about for a WHILE.
No going over threshold, hopefully, EVER.

I am quite happy with how it went.

that's good news becca! All the time and hard work you put in will be worth it!

He's smart. He'll get it -- fast

Coming into this late and didnt' read the whole thread...

Revy is a growler in her crate. It's not an aggressive/posessive growl, it's exactly what Doberluv described - just grumbling while she eats. At first it scared me, but now that I know what it is.... doesn't bother me.

I know that some dogs do the "Eating Talk".
But Luke's escalated to outside of the crate.
And when I would get close, he'd stop eating, the ears would go back, his body would stiffen, and he'd follow me with his eyes.