#156 - Q&A: All About Resource Guarding

In this Q&A episode, we’re answering your questions about resource guarding. 

If you’ve ever lied awake at 2am thinking: 

“Is this normal?” 

“Am I overreacting?”

“Did I cause this?” 

“Should I try that 30-second training hack I just saw on the internet?”

This one’s for you.

We don’t want you spiraling.
And we definitely don’t want you getting bitten.

So we’re breaking down what resource guarding actually is, when it’s a real concern, when it’s just… normal, and why timing and trust matter more than flashy hacks.

TLDL (too long, didn’t listen): 

1️⃣ Resource guarding is normal - Across species. Including humans. The real questions are about safety, reasonability, and relationship impact. 

2️⃣ From your dog’s perspective, you might be a thief - If you regularly take things without trading, you’re eroding trust. Establishing a baseline of “when I take, I give” changes everything.

3️⃣ This is not a “just follow this one tip” behavior - Timing matters. Order of events matters. Agency matters. DIYing this from a random post can make it worse faster than you think.

For the full episode show notes, including the resources mentioned in this episode, go here.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Emily: I would say most non-humans operate under like finders keepers rules. And so like, they don't know that you believe that this towel belongs to you because you paid for it. They know that they found the towel, they like the towel, ergo it is their towel. So, so yeah, we're operating under two totally different systems of ownership and that causes a lot of, of conflict and confusion between people and their pets.

[00:00:28] Allie: Welcome to Enrichment for the Real World, the podcast devoted to improving the quality of life of pets and their people through enrichment. We are your hosts, Allie Bender...

[00:00:45] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:00:47] Allie: ...and we are here to challenge and expand your view of what enrichment is, what enrichment can be and what enrichment can do for you and the animals in your lives. Let's get started.

Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Enrichment for the Real World, and I want to thank you for rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:01:07] Ellen: Welcome to today's q and a episode where we're talking about all things resource guarding. We get a lot of questions about this, so we're answering them to the best of our ability here. kick us off, we're gonna start with our definition of resource guarding. What do we mean when we're talking about resource guarding in today's episode?

[00:01:24] Emily: guarding is just a thing that happens across sentient beings, and it makes a lot of sense in the wild because, you know, if somebody steals your food, it's not like any wild animal can just like stroll down to the local pet store. If somebody steals their home, it's not like they can just go to apartments.com and find a new place.

Like, if you don't protect your resources in the wild, you're probably gonna die. So like it, it is a perfectly reasonable. Survival mechanism in certain contexts. 

[00:01:59] Allie: Yeah, I, I think the, the, like, explain it like I'm, five definition we're using is when an individual says, this is mine, don't touch it

[00:02:08] Emily: Yeah, and you know, humans get insurance discounts for resource guarding, so I'm just saying we do it too.

[00:02:16] Allie: so much.

[00:02:17] Emily: Back in the day when Allie and I, they used to teach workshops. We found this photo on the internet that we would use in our resource guarding presentations of this like take home box, like leftovers box that says, Marco's 87 fries. I will count them with exclamation points. And I was like, this is peak human food guarding right here.

[00:02:41] Allie: My favorite is, my partner was reading something about how you can tell that somebody has grown up with older siblings because you eat with your arm, like around your plate and he was telling me this and he was like, I don't, I don't know if that's true, like as he was doing it and didn't notice that he was doing because his brother would always take his food.

[00:03:04] Emily: I mean, I was the oldest sibling and my youngest siblings stole my food all the time. So it's, it goes both ways. Younger siblings.

[00:03:12] Allie: I guard food even though I don't have siblings. I don't know who, well, now I'm guarding from Alex. Maybe it's because I never had to, like, there was always a surplus, like if I got something, it was always going to be there, but now that's not true. So now I guard.

[00:03:27] Ellen: The second question, when is resource guarding a problem?

[00:03:31] Emily: When, when somebody is like my pet is guarding. I have feelings about this. My, my question is like, are are, is it appropriate? Like, are they guarding because you're stealing their stuff? If so, maybe try not stealing their stuff anymore. But a lot of times what we're seeing is that the animal legitimately can't assess who is and is not. Who does and does not pose a threat to their resources, or they just lack diplomacy and they jump straight to knife fights instead of being like, just don't touch my stuff, please. And it's like, okay, well there are several steps between, you're fine with sharing and knife fights. Like you, we, we can learn diplomacy. So there, there are better ways of, of asking people not to touch your stuff. So those are kind of the two different aspects of guarding that I'm looking at. When I, when I, when I'm assessing like, is this a you problem? Do you need to stop stealing from your pet? Or like, is this actually your pet needs to learn some things or, or we need to address some unmet needs or something. 

[00:04:39] Allie: My, my biggest criteria are safety, because even if you're stealing stuff from your pet and they beat you up, there is a problem. It's on both sides, but there is a problem. And then is it reasonable? You know, if somebody walks 10 feet away from a bowl of food and a dog is lunging and air snapping and trying to bite you, that's not reasonable. 10 feet away is not, is not a thing that we should be guarding. If somebody is actively pulling a knuckle bone out of your mouth and you bite them. That's much more reasonable. Maybe don't manhandle mouths in that case.

[00:05:21] Emily: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:22] Allie: I will say though, with the caveat of like reasonability, I don't think that's a word, but it is now,

[00:05:29] Emily: Let's make it a word.

[00:05:29] Allie: let's make it a word. There is a caveat of if there's children in the house, because if we have an animal who is resource guarding, I can't expect a 2-year-old human to understand, don't take things out of the dog's mouth no matter what we do.

Just like their brain is not developed enough for us to be able to assume that that is an okay management strategy. And so it's not necessarily that the guarding is unreasonable, but we still have to put in a lot of extra management in place because we can't expect the tiny human to make good decisions in that moment.

[00:06:10] Ellen: For me, it becomes a problem if it's hurting the relationship, whether or not safety is an issue.

If your relationship with your pet or your pet and your other pet or any combination of individuals in the house are having a hard time with it, that's also problematic. And then the last one is if we're getting resource guarding, and it may be very reasonable, it may be very safe the individuals in the household, but we're resource guarding items that are really dangerous.

So like, I've had dogs on walks that would resource guard like razor blades. And that's the kind of thing where. If this was a stick, I wouldn't care. 

[00:06:49] Allie: I mean that's, that to me still falls into the safety category, you know, it's just safety on the, the non-human side versus safety on the human side.

[00:06:58] Ellen: I agree. But I think when we talk about safety and resource guarding, because it's so often like a, a two or more individual thing, I think we think about the safety to one another. We don't necessarily think about the safety of the individual who is guarding something from the thing that they are guarding.

[00:07:15] Emily: And it also falls under, it's another good example of another permutation of reasonable guarding, because why on earth do you think that this razor blade that is just randomly on the, the street is a, yours and b, a, like at risk of being stolen by literally anybody that, that, I, I, I am a little alarmed that the dog is making that assessment like, I just saw this thing, it is mine.

And also I'm going to guard it from the person who loves me and cares for me, and is my ride or die human who is taking me on this walk to begin with. There's some, there's some stuff going on there 

that we maybe need to look into because I would not call that reasonable guarding.

[00:07:59] Ellen: yeah. The next question, do you have any tips for living with a resource guarder? My flippant answer is we all live with resource guarders because resource guarding is natural.

[00:08:09] Allie: Yeah.

[00:08:10] Emily: is, it is a flippant but true answer, but we can, we can answer the question that people are really asking because what they're really telling us is. I don't feel safe because an animal in my home guards things and my, my slightly less flippant, but still flippant answer is first, make sure nobody in your house is stealing things from your pet. Is your pet guarding because they live in a house with at least one dirty thief? And if so, that's, that's your, that's your problem. And also the reason I said first find out if that's true is because we definitely don't. Want to assume that people are the reason their pet is guarding. Because guarding can be really complicated and happen for a lot of reasons.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the behavior of the humans in the home. So we're not automatically assuming that the humans are doing something to cause this issue, but it is the low hanging fruit, like first things first, we have to make sure that stealing isn't actually happening before we identify what other, what other causes this animal has not to trust that their resources are safe and, and protected. 

[00:09:30] Allie: I wanna make it really clear that even though you said stealing, which implies that it is the animal's resource that it, that doesn't mean it is actually the animal's resource. If your pet, yeah, if your dog takes the dish towel, you know, and goes away with it and you take the dish towel, that is still included in what Emily's talking about of stealing. It's anything that you are taking away from the animal.

[00:09:59] Emily: Yeah. Dogs have no concept of ownership via purchase, right? So like they're, they dogs operate. I mean, I would say most non-humans operate under like finders keepers rules. And so like, they don't know that you believe that this towel belongs to you because you paid for it. They know that they found the towel, they like the towel, ergo it is their towel. So, so yeah, we're operating under two totally different systems of ownership and that causes a lot of, of conflict and confusion between people and their pets. Just if you're taking things from your pet without giving them something of equal or greater value in return from their perspective, it's you're stealing whether or not that is true according to our definition of ownership. And, and so that, yes, thank you for clarifying that. But the second thing I would say that the second tip I have is. Work with a qualified behavior professional because like I said earlier, a lot of things can go into guarding to make it really complex. That's not always true. It's not always complex, but there are a lot of potential complexities and a qualified behavior professional who understands those complexities can help you navigate the situation and figure out how many complexities there might be.

Make sure that you have the right people on your support team to address the various facets of the situation, and they can give you some really good management strategies, sustainability strategies and, and skill building um, plans so that y y'all can more successfully navigate whatever it's, it is that go, that that's going on.

And I mean, all of us have run, seen the gamut of that. We've had clients who are like. Our dog keeps biting us when we steal things out of their mouth. And, and we've all, and we've all had those cases where like, have you tried not stealing stuff out of their mouth and they're like, can, like, you fixed it?

That's amazing. You're a sorcerer. And then we've also had situations where we go in and people are like, my dog bites me because, they're, they don't want me around their food. And then we get in and there's just layers of complexity and it's a really, really legitimately hard situation and nobody can know upfront what your situation is.

Nobody can just read a post on the internet and know what comple complexities you may or may not be dealing with. So, internet advice and web articles that you might read and stuff is, is not gonna be nearly as helpful as somebody who's actually working with you to make those assessments and give you a plan based on. What's actually going on in your household?

[00:12:50] Ellen: I think my biggest tip for living with resource gardeners is just plan for management and make that normal, because like my dogs have ebbs and flows of resource guarding, and when we're talking about resource guarding, we can be talking about food, we can talk about space, we can talk about anything.

We're not gonna get into the nitty gritty of, is this resource guarding or is this something else? What we're talking about for my dogs in particular is like, I need space from you when I have this thing. Or maybe we just leave it at, I need space from you. And easier to think about, but it ebbs and flows with their pain levels. It ebbs and flows with their sleep. It ebbs and flows with their, how upset their stomach happens to be. And with all of those things, I just plan for management. They don't eat together. They don't have kongs or topples or lick mats together. And taking the question out of it takes a lot of cognitive labor out of it, because I don't have to make an assessment all the time. Is today a day where we could do this together or is this a day where they need to be separated, just separate and then it's standard operating procedure in our home.

[00:13:55] Allie: In addition to just assume management, I find one of the things that, that I frequently think of, not only for myself and Oso, is not really a garter like he, it, it. There are very few things in this world that he has deemed are good enough to, to guard. And when he does, it's usually the, like, I just take it away from you.

If you get close to me, I'd rather like not con like it, the, there's not a lot of conflict involved in it. It's very cute. And I'm like, okay, you can have the disgusting thing that you have because it's always a disgusting thing in that situation.

[00:14:34] Ellen: want it.

[00:14:35] Allie: I, I,

[00:14:36] Ellen: I don't really want you to have it, but I definitely don't want it.

[00:14:39] Allie: yes,

[00:14:40] Emily: Yeah.

[00:14:40] Allie: that's, that's exactly the situation. But I think but a, something that I think of frequently is, is this a battle worth fighting? And the answer is almost always no. So what I will say, grain of salt with what I'm about to say, because Oso has. The intestinal track of a garbage disposal. He can eat whatever.

It's changed a little bit now that he's in his twilight years, but, you know, even now it's still pretty good. I, this boy has eaten so many things and it has been completely fine with it. He just is a garbage disposal and and so I can legitimately let him eat the gross thing and it will be okay.

I'm not getting up eight times in the middle of the night because he has diarrhea. So grain of salt with that. But but almost always. It will be fine if he has the thing, whether or not he eats it or not. And that's true. So many times when, when I am working with clients where they're like, well my dog ha is chewing on a stick and I'm worried about splinters.

And it's like, yeah, that is a valid concern. And also the chances of that happening to me don't outweigh the impact it's going to have on your relationship if you keep taking sticks out of your dog's mouth without working on the training and et cetera, et cetera.

[00:16:15] Ellen: And that's where the, the condition of is it safe

came from for me because we have so many dogs where like it. Are they still gonna be here tomorrow if they eat that piece of chicken that just fell on the ground? Is it reasonable for a dog to resource guard a piece of chicken that fell on the ground? And is there a very, very large consequence for this particular dog with their particular medical history? If they get that piece of chicken that fell on the ground?

And if the human panics because they don't want to have four nights of interrupted sleep because the dog has constant diarrhea, or a potential, like, we're gonna have to go to the internist and we're gonna have to do all of this recovery work panics and says, I need, I need to pick that up really quickly. And so for me, that's why I make the dis the distinction of the safety around the thing that is actually being guarded.

[00:17:05] Emily: Yeah. I'm going to amend my first tip to be instead of like, don't do the thing I'm going to, I'm gonna tell you what to do instead, which is establish a baseline of trustworthiness. And what, what I mean by that is if you are just in habit of like anytime you take something from your dog, you give them some kind of snack or toy or something that they value afterwards, when you have those moments where you legitimately have to snatch something from their jaws because of a safety issue, they're not going to, it's going to be much less likely that they are going to lash out at you about it because they have such a long and huge learning history of you giving.

After you take that, it's not gonna be as big of a deal. And I saw that in real time with Miley because. I live that with every animal I interact with. If I take anything from them, I give them something of equal or greater value as a habit, as a lifestyle. My partner who's not an animal behavior professional, doesn't do that. And when when when Miley was in her peak puppy chewing phase and she would steal something that she wasn't supposed to have and start chewing on it, my partner would panic and just snatch it out of her mouth. And he did that like two or three times. And by that, the last time that, that he did it, Miley ducked and dodged into get, like, it was like, you can't take this out of my mouth and I take stuff out of her mouth.

Or at the time I did, 'cause she was still a chewy puppy, I would take stuff out of her mouth all the time. And not only was she fine with it, but she would follow me until I gave her the snack. 'cause she knew the snack was coming. And so I told my partner, I was like, the reason she's avoiding you is because. You've stolen from her according to her perspective, and you're not giving her anything in return. And so she doesn't trust you. And if you don't want her to run from you and try to hide the things that she has taken, if you want her to, to interact with you the way she interacts with me, then just make it a habit of giving her a snack after you take something from her.

And he started doing that immediately, and it took her no time at all to learn that he was also trustworthy. So now Chuck can take stuff from her and she has the same reaction to him that she has to me, where if, if, if he takes something, she's like, oh, cool, I'm gonna get a snack.

I'm just gonna hang out with you until you feed me. And it didn't take him very much time to change her response to him taking stuff from her mouth. All he had to do was just establish a baseline of trustworthiness and he started getting the same responses from Miley that I get from her.

[00:19:54] Ellen: Yeah, trades are just muscle memory for me at this point

[00:19:57] Emily: Yeah, same.

[00:19:58] Ellen: because Lord knows I don't want to get the Teeths or the beaks or any other 

[00:20:04] Emily: For me, for me, the biggest thing was I got so tired of chasing animals around and having, we had a boxer who, when, when I was little and we didn't know any better, we would take stuff from her and she would run, she would steal stuff and then run and boxers, y'all are fast. And we would, it would be take forever to catch her and get the thing from her.

And it was so annoying and frustrating. And now I know better and I look back and I'm like, that was such an avoidable scenario. But I, I live my life so that I never have to have that relationship dynamic with an animal ever again.

[00:20:40] Ellen: It's exhausting.

[00:20:42] Emily: It's exhausting.

[00:20:43] Ellen: Okay. Oh, well, and that brings us to our next question quite nicely. What shouldn't I do with my resource garter? I think we've, we've articulated it many times here. Don't pry your dog's mouth open to take things as a standard practice. Ideally, never. But I also, there have been times where we're not eating that. We're not eating that. It's not safe. We're not going to the er. I do not want to have to tell the vet that you ate that entire mole carcass that just like fell out of the sky and deal with the bones of that. So, no.

[00:21:18] Emily: don't give your animal just a whole bunch of whatever it is that they guard. I, I don't see that advice happening as much these days as I, as I used to back in the day, but just in case you have seen that advice on the internet, please don't do it. Even if it looks like it's working in the short term, there is a high likelihood that it will increase the guarding behavior over the long term, because now instead of one tennis ball, they have to guard a hundred, and that's just so much more work for them. And so they, there's a really high probability that they'll get even more sensitized than they were before.

[00:21:55] Allie: I'm gonna add two things, three things, two, and then we'll see how we feel. So one of the things that I was taught to do when I was. A brand new trainer who was learning from other trainers was to teach dogs not to guard by picking up the food bowl, putting something delicious in it, giving it back to them. And sure, that can be a thing maybe.

And also when you interrupt your dogs every meal, it's a really good way to create a resource guard. Or even if you are giving them something delicious every time you do that. And I think of it as if I was eating a meal every single time I ate a meal, somebody came up and took my food away from me and gave me a cupcake like maybe the first couple of times.

That's cool. After every meal for a week, I'd be like, I don't want your freaking cupcake. Just stop bothering me. Gosh. So that is a thing that I'm sorry to the people that I had in group classes 14 years ago, I didn't know that that was a, that doing it all the time was problematic. I think, to be fair, I told him not to do it every time.

I don't know, it was 14 years ago. It was a long time. I have since learned better. So that is one. The other thing is, is it's also really easy to create a garter if you are doing the training wrong. And this goes back to what you were saying, Emily, of this is one where if you no, this is a behavior issue.

Where it's really, really easy to mess up if you're following advice from the internet because not to get like super, super nerdy, but the order of events matters. And so if you try to, like, let's say Oso finds the most delicious watermelon that has ever been a watermelon in his entire lifetime. And he is like, I'm a guard this. If I were to put some treats down next to it, he's eating those treats and then I just take the watermelon. That will make him more likely to guard later because I just tricked him into taking his stuff and nobody like, nobody likes to be tricked. Nobody wants that. So the problem is you have to take the thing that they're guarding or potentially guarding first and then give them the trade. And if you don't know how to do that safely, one, you're gonna get bit. Two, you're not gonna do it right, because fear is gonna win out and then you're gonna do it wrong.

And then you're gonna create a resource garter, and then you have to call us. And then it's a whole thing. So. This is one 

[00:24:59] Emily: the end and call us.

[00:25:00] Allie: so, so skip to the end. Call a professional, have us deal with it because this is definitely one where there's enough information out there to be dangerous with it. And I've seen a lot, a lot, a lot of clients who have tried to DIY this and have made it far worse than ha if they had called a professional from the beginning because this is one where timing super matters, order of events, super matters, and it's really, really easy to mess up easier than in other behavior issues in my opinion.

[00:25:36] Emily: Yeah. And this is also a situation where even if you hire a positive reinforcement based trainer who you know, has compelling marketing, showing that they are qualified to work on resource guarding ask them what their client journey looks like. Because what is equally dangerous is that a trainer gives you an actual training plan and is like, okay, you've got everything you need. We just need to see each other once because I figured out what your issue is and I've given you a plan and, and bye. We're done Now. I fixed it. I can, I cannot tell you how many times we have worked with, with clients who got a training plan and still messed it up because it, it's one of those things.

It's not just that the details matter, but also the details require practice and feedback, because a lot of times when we're first learning a skill and we don't have muscle memory yet, what we think we're doing and what we're actually doing are not the same thing. So even if you think you're following the directions, you really need a behavior professional who's gonna stick with you for that journey. And help you to hone those skills and do them well so that you can be successful and stay safe.

And so, like, there's a, there's a trend that I've noticed over the past few years in our industry, which I'm just gonna say it, I hate with a fiery passion of this, this belief that like, you can just give a client everything they need. You give them their video, you give them their, your notes and your plans, and then the clients can just do it on their own. And I understand that the intention behind that is accessibility because it's cheaper to just pay once. But as somebody who cleans up those messes, please don't, please please don't.

That's, that's not how behavior works. You want a behavior professional who can stick with you through the whole journey and help you to refine your skills and get it right and adjust as needed and make tweaks when. Something, a wrench gets thrown into the works. Even if it costs more, you're going to be safer and more successful when you invest in the journey.

Not just getting somebody who can hand you a pretty training plan and call it a day. There. I threw my shade. I got it outta my system. We can move on.

[00:27:59] Ellen: I, so we've been doom and gloom this episode, which. For those of you listening, it's a fine line when we talk about things like that because plenty of our audience is listening and they are in situations that they could get hurt. Plenty of our audience is in situations where they just need some finessing. Plenty of our audience is in situations where they have incredible skills already and they just need some finessing. Speaking to all three of those audiences is quite challenging, and to do that ethically and safely is even harder. So if you're in one of those and you're like, this is the end of the world, pet Harmony has now made this sound like this is the end of the world. It's not the end of the world. So while in our heads, we are thinking of the situations that are very, very serious when we're making this podcast episode, we also remember that like resource grading is normal. And so very normal resource guarding can be finessed to increase safety, to increase comfort, to increase or decrease stress in relationships, and isn't going to be a huge overhaul. Like some of the situations, like I had one client, the dog they tried to do all the management possible and this dog would take the resource break through whatever barriers were put in place, like multiple layers of protection to find a person to drop it at their feet and then guard it, like scary guard it. And so for that family, it's a very different situation than what I live with in my houses where like if I approach and griffey's not donating breakfast, he puts his body between me and the bowl. That's fine. You eat by this kitchen sink though, and I need to put this over there. So like, here's, here's a little bit of chicken.

And that's not all the time. That's just when he's painful and his belly hurts. And so I get to use that as good information to manage the rest of his life.

[00:29:49] Emily: I love that you brought that up and are helping us to, we started with, it's as easy as don't steal, and then we went to, no, seriously, your dog will bite you. And then you brought it back to the center. And I think, I would just say if you want a good example of what that journey looks like, listen to our previous episodes because I've been very open with my journey with first copper guarding from Miley and biting her in the face, not once, but twice, and then now Miley guarding and all the different layers of like the contributing factors from Miley and the things that we have done to address it.

And neither copper nor Miley have ever posed a threat to humans. Copper very briefly was not safe for Miley because he was biting her in the face. And that we resolved that and they have a great relationship now and he's very appropriate with her. And. And Miley's guarding, while it looks really scary and can sound really scary, she's, she's got incredible bite inhibition and she's never, ever tried to actually bite or, or harm copper. So, you can, I think I've got a really good middle of the road case in my house of like, we do need to do stuff with this. It's not okay. And also they're not, neither of my dogs are super dangerous. Neither of them pose a safety risk. And, and so like, I think if you need to see that it, it can be stuff that needs finesse and also is, is not a nightmare. Listen to our podcast and, and listen to the journey that I've gone on with Copper and Miley. I, I think that's what I have to add to that is I'm living the middle ground between the two extremes, right?

[00:31:33] Allie: Yeah, and I, I think. When we, you know, after we go on the journey with most of our clients, you know, there are some of those like really extreme cases like what, what Ellen was saying. And those require more hefty management for the rest of that animal's life. But for so many resource guarding cases, you know, we give both the humans and their pets tools for how everybody can safely and harmoniously navigate life together.

And then it's just not a huge deal afterwards. It's like, this is just how we live together. Like how we have to navigate every relationship where we have a, when we live in the same household, you know, regardless of species. And so I think of the things that the tools that I have in place for Oso, and I didn't necessarily have to, capital T train, many of them especially because he's really not a huge guarder. Like I said, there, there are very few things in this world that he is deemed worth it to guard from me. Specifically, I will say, I, I tell anybody else who's in the house not to take anything aside from, you know, my partner, but anybody besides the two of us, I tell them like, just don't even bother, don't try, like, let's, let's just not with my 90 pound dog.

Test those limits and see what's true and what's not true. But at least from me, there are very few things in this world that he deems worthy of guarding. And like I said, usually he does the very cute, just goes away with it and is like, please don't take this from me. And I'm like, oh, buddy. Okay. I don't think it will pose a health problem.

So you can eat whatever that is or destroy or whatever. Usually eat in that case though. But you know, I, I think about us in the kitchen where I taught him to hang out just outside of the kitchen. I think there's a blog post I wrote about this many years ago. And that was mostly just so he wasn't underfoot when I was cooking and I wasn't tripping over him.

It had nothing to do with guarding. But the nice thing about that was if I dropped something, he has an automatic leave it for anything I drop while I am, you know, chopping stuff. 'cause sometimes it's onions like, you know, things that are actually dangerous for him and he should not be eating. So he has an automatic leave it until I can process.

Thing on ground, is it safe? Yes or no? And then if it's safe, I let him have it. And so that was just a thing that we've developed throughout the years of, of living together. And I don't remember where I was going with this story other than to say a lot of the tools can just be built into day-to-day life with your pet and, and don't have to be a huge deal.

[00:34:26] Emily: Yeah, I don't think I did any capital t training with Miley for her guarding stuff. I leveraged skills that she already had, like her recall.

[00:34:36] Allie: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:36] Emily: But I didn't, in trades we can make the, Nope, that was training as, as you go training too,

[00:34:42] Allie: Yeah.

[00:34:43] Emily: so Yeah. No, I did no capital T training with Miley. It was all train as you go, and leveraging skills she already had and recognizing the non-training stuff that was involved, like fatigue, hormones, allergies and environmental arrangement. Enrichment plan type of stuff. So yeah, it doesn't have to be a lot of work, but that doesn't mean it also doesn't have to be precise. Like it can be easy, sustainable. And it also still, the devils are still, sorry. No, the devil is still in the details, right?

[00:35:15] Ellen: Yeah, and I would say as a professional, the number one thing that you shouldn't do. See resource guardian and think, oh, just desensitization and counter conditioning.

[00:35:26] Emily: Oh, preach again for the people in the back. Say it louder. My God. As someone who is about to teach a classical conditioning course again for the people in the back.

[00:35:37] Ellen: If, if your plan includes the word, just you're oversimplifying it in a very scary way to me.

[00:35:44] Emily: Yeah. Yes. Hard yes to that. I think, we, we talk about this a lot, but we care a lot about agency in general and enrichment and agency are, are inextricably intertwined. But when you're dealing with something where an animal doesn't feel safe and doesn't have trust and is afraid that their resources are going to be taking, taken away from them, that implies that they feel that they lack agency. So implementing a training plan that does not give them agency, that is still just a passive learning experience for them is not it. Is why I had such a visceral response to what Ellen said about, about, a classical conditioning approach. Because resource guarding by definition is an animal who feels disempowered. And classical conditioning, by definition is a passive learning experience that does not empower the learners by itself. So it's not, it is not addressing the root of the issue, which is this animal needs to feel empowered. We need to give them skills to navigate these situations better than they currently are. So we're not going to rely on a passive learning to, to address a a something that at is at its core disempowerment.

[00:37:02] Ellen: That brings us to our last question, and this is when we get all the time, and you can quite honestly swap in resource guarding for whatever issue and we get it constantly. Did I cause my dog's resource guarding? And the very quick answer is resource gardening's normal.

[00:37:20] Emily: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:21] Ellen: And also, what was it I saw? I saw my dietician told me. just because it's not my fault doesn't mean it's not my responsibility.

[00:37:28] Emily: Oh, I love that. That's beautiful.

[00:37:30] Ellen: And so as the individual in the house with thumbs and the credit card and all of the things. There are things that I could do that, that make my dog's resource gardening worse. There are things that I could do that make my dog's resource gardening better. At the end of the day, where you are now is what matters, not necessarily how we got here.

[00:37:52] Emily: Yeah, when I still worked with clients individually, like on a, on a personal level, I used to tell my clients all the time because so many of my clients would come to me with shame and guilt. I would tell them there's no value to the should'a, coulda, woulda game. You did the best you could with the information and resources you had at the time, and now you know better, so you're gonna do better. it, it, even if you did contribute. That doesn't mean that you're past the point of no return. That doesn't mean that you can't change things moving forward. It just means that that's what happened in the past. And that might inform how we, what we work on or how we approach it. But it doesn't, it's not a reflection on you as a person.

It's not a reflection on you as a pet parent. It's not a reflection on your character. It is. It's just stuff that happened when you had less information and fewer resources available to you, and now you've got more at your disposal so you can do more and do better. Right. And I think that's so important, especially in the face of, we talk a lot on this podcast about the false dichotomy of like the, the nature and nurture stuff, debates that are still happening in the 21st century.

It's like. It, I don't understand why we're still having these extremes of either it's all in how you raise them or like morphology, predicts behavior, but like, somehow we're still having these arguments and like this idea that like, it's all in how you raise them and if your dog is guarding it's because you did something wrong.

Or like Ellen said, any behavior is profoundly ignoring genetic influence. We can see like I am living that I have a dog who was purpose bred by a very adept breeder. And her lineage is so predictable. Like they are all, like, when Miley and her sister play together have play dates, they are practically the same dog.

I I don't mean that that's, that is exaggeration. But what, what I, the reason I'm saying that is because the things that they guard. The way that they guard their ladders of escalation and deescalation are identical. And obviously they have different personalities and different preferences, and they are different animals with different beha behavioral repertoires. But when I watch how they respond to stressors, they are the same. And that is, it's, that is a function of skillfully applied, intentional, mindful, selective breeding that these dogs were bred to do a thing. And so you're going to see similar responses when it comes to anything related to those selections being made. Right. But that doesn't mean that all basenjis are garters. I've, I know lots of basenjis who aren't garters. It doesn't mean that. I can't have influence over Miley's guarding that I've had a major positive impact on her guarding. I just celebrated in Pet Pro yesterday that when I took Miley to her play date and one of her friends stole her beef, jerk, her bison jerky snack, Miley's response instead of guarding, was to run straight to me for more snacks. Okay? That's, that is the, the realm of influence that I had over a dog with very strong genetic tendencies towards guarding from other dogs, right? Dog, dog directed guarding. So it, it's, it's not all you, it's not your fault. And also there are things that you can do to make it better.

[00:41:20] Ellen: With that, that's a wrap. Thank you for giving us your questions about things, resource guarding and others. We will be posting on our socials and in our email list for future q and a episodes. If you have a burning question you would love to ask

[00:41:34] Allie: I hope you enjoy today's episode and if there's someone in your life who also needs to hear this, be sure to text it to them right now. If you're a pet parent looking for more tips on enrichment, behavior modification, and finding harmony with your pet, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Harmony training. If you're a behavior or training professional dedicated to enrichment for yourself, your clients, and their pets, check us out on TikTok and Instagram at Pet Harmony Pro.

As always, links to everything we discussed in this episode are in the show notes. Thank you to Ellen Yoakum for editing this episode and making us sound good. Our intro music is from Penguin Music on Pixa Bay. Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. That helps more pet lovers and professionals find us so they can bring enrichment into their world too.

Thank you for listening, and here's to harmony. Oh, I just hurt my pants more. Oh, no.

[00:42:29] Emily: So Ellen, this episode is just you and me today, apparently.

[00:42:32] Allie: I can say something I guess.

[00:42:34] Emily: I'm so sorry for you. Thanks for taking one for the 

team. Oh. 

[00:42:37] Ellen: We're so mean to ask her to participate in the thing that she pushed for for years.

[00:42:44] Emily: The thing that she made us all do,

[00:42:47] Ellen: This was entirely all driven.

[00:42:50] Emily: but we're the mean ones for making her participate in it.

[00:42:53] Ellen: Yep. Yep.

[00:42:55] Allie: Here I am just trying my little hardest.

Tired In my soul,

[00:43:04] Ellen: With ripped pants.

[00:43:06] Allie: they're just, 

[00:43:07] Emily: with ripped pants,