Training Philosophy
Resource Guarding Towards People
If you notice early signs of your puppy resource guarding, you can easily prevent it from escalating into severe aggression using our proprietary puppy resource guarding treatment. Puppy growling during healthy play is a perfectly normal puppy behavior. However, if your puppy growls and stiffens when you or another family member grabs one of your puppy’s toys, that could be an early indicator of resource guarding. Or maybe your puppy hunkers down over items, hides them, or even swallows them whole? Treating your puppy’s resource guarding yourself can be challenging as punishing guarding can worsen the behavior. Our Kansas City Resource Guarding Puppy Training Programs will help you identify any potential puppy aggression and treat it in a safe, science-based training method.
Resource Guarding Towards Other Dogs
One of the most common reasons that puppies resource guard is because they learn the behavior from an older dog in the home. If you notice your puppy copying their sibling’s aggressive behavior around food or toys, we highly recommend early intervention. When puppy resource guarding isn’t addressed early on, it can lead to serious fights with other dogs in the home later in life which we always want to avoid at all costs! Our Kansas City puppy training programs are scientifically proven to reduce and eliminate puppy aggression using a proprietary combination of positive reinforcement and classical conditioning. Led by Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist, Dr. Echterling-Savage, our pre-training team will analyze our incredibly detailed Indirect Assessment of Canine Behavior that each client completes before training. Next, your Kansas City dog trainer will travel directly to your home to treat your puppy’s resource guarding wherever it’s occurring and will use advanced obedience training to help manage your puppy’s behavior around valued items. Your puppy’s well-being is at the forefront of every one of our puppy training programs.
Training Programs
This Kansas City puppy training program is specifically designed to reduce and eliminate any resource guarding and to teach your puppy relevant obedience commands. We will address behaviors such as:
Resource guarding and other problematic behaviors in puppies arise from a complex interplay of environmental factors, developmental history, and genetic predispositions. Puppies rescued from environments with limited resources or those raised alongside older dogs exhibiting resource-guarding behaviors are at heightened risk of developing similar tendencies. Regrettably, untreated resource guarding in puppies tends to escalate over time. Nonetheless, employing a function-based approach rooted in behavior modification offers a promising solution, with the potential to entirely eradicate resource-guarding behaviors in puppies. Research by Mehrkam et al. supports that functional analysis-based treatment using behavior modification was highly effective in treating resource guarding in dogs with results that last weeks after treatment has been performed. According to our resident CAAB Dr. Echterling-Savage, “The best way to eliminate puppy guarding is to recognize the early signs right away and seek professional help. Once the behavior has been identified, one of our Kansas City behavior consultants can easily treat the problem behavior.”
The All-Inclusive Program for Puppy Resource Guarding encompasses 20 training sessions across 5 intensive weeks with 2 follow-up sessions spanning a total of 22 training sessions over 8 weeks! After you submit your training contract and Indirect Assessment of Canine Behavior, our pre-training team, led by our CAAB, Dr. Echterling-Savage, uses the information provided to craft your personalized puppy training program. Then, your trainer will put your training plan into action! Your trainer will work with your puppy one-on-one for three (1) hour sessions during the week. The fourth session each week is dedicated to your training! This structure is designed to produce seamless learning and long-term behavior change. After the 5-week-long training, there are 2 follow-up sessions to support your progress. Please note that our indirect behavior assessments will confirm the severity of your puppy’s behavior and if deemed severe you may incur a small additional fee.
If you are a pet parent with an insurance policy covering behavior modification, our resource-guarding puppy behavior modification is likely covered. When behavior training is under the direction of a CAAB or a Board Certified Veterinary Behaviorist, most companies with behavior policies such as Trupanion will cover behavioral training.
Want help treating your puppy’s resource guarding but don’t live in Kansas City? Schedule a 1-hour virtual training consultation with one of our behavior experts! In these 1-hour virtual consultations, we will give you expert training advice and management strategies to help with your puppy’s resource guarding. Depending on the severity of your puppy’s resource guarding from the Indirect Assessment of Canine Behavior, we will recommend one or multiple sessions with Dr. Echterling-Savage or with one of our other behavior consultants under her direct supervision. Pricing for 1-hour virtual consultations with Dr. Ectherling-Savage is $375. Pricing for a 1-hour virtual consultation with one of our Kansas City trainers starts at $150.
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