my dog's an animal!

lol. no seriously, our 4 1/2 mth old pomeranian got very agressive and mean yesterday. We had chicken for dinner and he got into the grabage bag and first took out the rubber band that held the chicken together during cooking.

when i tried to take it away, he growled and snarled and did that crazy dog thing with snapping his mouth- ya know the kind that would scare most people. i got very upset, turned him on his back and told him to never do that to me again. he swallowed the rubberband so i could not get it.

than an hour or so later he got at the garbage again and grabbed a bone. my dh tried to get it out of his mouth and he did the scary thing again! i heard it from the other room and came in yelling that he better not be doing that again. he ran into the other room and when i got a hold of him- he did it to me again, except this time i really thought he was going to bite me hard.

how could he do that to me? i was very upset he could act like that towards me- who cares, loves, plays and feeds him. again he swallowed the bone so i could not get it. he's not starving but his animal instinct came out in full blast yesterday. although this is the first time i tried to take something food related out of his mouth, so maybe that's why. very scary...

have anyone else's dogs done this to them?
and what do you do to get them to drop domething that's bad for them or prevent them from swallowing it?

Re: my dog's an animal!

First - if she definitely swallowed the rubberband, keep a close eye on her behavior and mood. If it gets tangled up in her intestines, that could be big trouble.

Second - we've trained Dottie to "drop it". So if she's got something in her mouth, and we say "drop it" sternly she drops it and backs away.
We used her ball that she plays fetch with to teach her drop it. Now she does it w/ everything.
Everytime she came back with the ball, we would say drop it, until she did and rewarded her afterwards.

Re: my dog's an animal!

yay, we've been watching him- i was so upset when he swallowed them- both the rubber band and bone can do serious injury to his insides! should i bring him to the vet?

we tried to tell him leave it- but he's not very good with that so we'll try training him more with a toy until he gets it. but the way he was acting, i don't think he would have ever dropped it.

Re: my dog's an animal!

One of my dogs gets this way, and what I do is take a piece of cheese and put it on the floor so he has to turn around then grab the item and reprimand him.

Re: my dog's an animal!

I would take the dog to the vet. Poms have very narrow intestines & it cannot hurt to check if the bones or the rubber band are problematic.

Rolling him on his back can be a good training tool. It shows who is the Alpha. It also can cause more aggression, so be careful. Also, tugging will only cause aggressive behaviour to get worse. I know you were trying to remove the items, but for future reference, take your fingers and gently press on the jaw to get the dog to release. Also do not play Tug-Of-War games with a dog who has shown aggression, as the *game* will only feed into it more. Definitely try the Drop it training more. It took a while for my dogs to get it, but with practice it was learned and is one of the best things I ever taught them.

Re: my dog's an animal!

thanks for the advice!

the items were actually so small that we would have had to put our fingers in his mouth to get them out. we didn't even get that close cuase he did the scary dog thing and i thought he would have bit me. so i tried to pick him up and turn him around so he could look at me and hopefully than drop it. but no such luck.

yay, we do play tug of war with him alot so we'll have to stop that and focus more on the drop it.

Re: my dog's an animal!

Please, please watch his bowel movement.
The rubber band is far worse than the bone...it can get caught up in his intestines.

As far as teaching them not to eat stuff...we would give Misty something yummy like a hard bone, tell her to drop it while kind of taking it out of her mouth and if she did we'd give her cheese or a cooke (something better)....we've been doing that since we got her and she just drops whatever she may be picking up to eat.

As far as the scary dog growl, you shouldn't let him get away with that. He is definitely establishing dominance over you...when he growls you can grab him by the top of the mouth and hold him in a submissive way until he stops, telling him NO the whole time.
Misty did that to me once and I did the above, then rolled her over and held her down while talking to her sternly.
She's never done it again.

Re: my dog's an animal!

Yes, my dog has done this to me. We had a trainer for a while because he is so protective of what he wants or what he considers to be his. Making a trade for something else does work really well. So, if he has something that is dangerous to him, trade it for a piece of cheese. I used to think that was just rewarding him for taking something, but then I realized that it is most important that he is safe.

Re: my dog's an animal!

Take him to the vet!

My cat at a rubberband and almost died because it wrapped around her intenstines and attached itself. She didnt eat or go to the bathroom for days. We didnt see her do it. We think she took it off my dads desk. When I noticed her not eating, I took her to the vet and he told me if I would have waited she could have died bc her intenstines would have died