Guarding

I got Soba a bully stick a few weeks ago, and he seemed to enjoy chewing it while he is outside. It is a considerable upgrade than the branch he was chewing on outside. Since he finished with his bully stick, I went to Petsmart to try to get him something similiar but small enough where he can finish chewing in an afternoon. So, I ended up getting him a bag of beef flavor raw hide.

We gave it to him last night while he was outside. He started to guard the raw hide. He didn't chew it but just stared at it to make sure no one gets near it. We can hear him growling at us through the glass door. So, I decided to do the following base on what I read and what our trainer said:

1) Trade something more valuable for the raw hide. I got some cheese from the fridge. I told him to sit and then gave him a small piece of cheese. While he ate the cheese, I took the raw hide in my hands then I handed back to him. This is to teach him that although we take it away from him we do give it back. It worked for a little bit but he was still guarding. He would push the raw hide close to him.

2) Since this didn't work, I decided to try what our trainer recommended which was to dump the entire bag of raw hide in front of him to show him that it is no big deal that there are alot more. But the reaction we got was he started to collect raw hide into pile and then proceed to guard them. This didn't quite work.

We left him outside for about 2 hours with the lights off. He was still guarding. Finally, Wade decided to bring him in but he went and got a broom. He used the broom to keep Soba away from him and then grab the raw hides. Soba was so vicious. Not only did he growl but he also bit at the broom. After he came in, he became his normal sweet self.

This is a huge problem! We need to help him break the cycle before he hurts someone. I guess back to the drawing board on how to do this.