Teaching a Boxer with Low Level Resource Guarding

This video is about training a boxer dog who has a low level resource guarding problem. The video is longer than I usually do, but it does show some of the things I work on with this kind of a problem. Don’t try this at home. This is for informational purposes only. If your dog shows any signs of aggression get help from a qualified professional dog trainer. The video was shot in Irvine California

In the video the dog does not act aggressive at all. The resource guarding is very mild. Even though the guarding behavior is hardly noticeable I wanted to keep the training as safe as possible. If you watch the video carefully you’ll notice some safe handling practices for working these training exercises. I was also trying to keep the dog well under the threshold for aggression. I plan on using a higher value toy in the next training session.

This video also shows some handling that will come in handy for any kind of dog training you’re doing. Some of the handling is even useful if you are not even training your dog but just need better general control.

Some of the dog obedience commands that are important for this training are the recall and the Drop command. In this video I use the dog’s name for the recall. Other important exercises for this training are touching drills and the Off exercise. I use the Off command to mean don’t touch. Some other styles of training may use the Leave It command instead of Off.

My recommendation for working the dog three times a day was meant as three training sessions a day. As I watch the video it sounds like I am saying only do the exercise three times a day.