Monday, June 20, 2011

Sharing is Caring

When we first brought Kyuubi home, Mika wasn't too sure about him. The first time I ever heard her growl was when the second day he was home with us and I heard Mika let out a growl! He had gotten near her OLD trachea chew that she refused to eat for 2 months. It was sitting in an old dog bed where we kept a lot of her toys at the time. We had forgotten it was there because well, she barely ever touched it. She suddenly wanted it though when Kyuubi showed a bit of interest in it. After that we made sure that we would keep them separated while they have chews or are fed. That didn't last long though because Mika would let Kyuubi take anything he wanted from her. She realized he was there to stay after the third day and didn't care anymore that he wanted to take her toy or her chew. She just went on to something else.

Kyuubi on the other hand resource guarded almost everything from Mika. Even while being fed in his crate he would bark at Mika if she even glimpsed over at him. He was kibble fed for probably the first two weeks or so when we got him then we switched him over to a raw diet. While being fed kibble in the beginning he would continuously guard it from Mika. After he started getting some raw, he no longer cared if she was near his crate while he had kibble. For a while he wouldn't eat his kibble anymore and just wanted raw. Mika would go over to his bowl and eat and he would go back to his bowl of kibble and they would eat it together.

Now, I won't say that Kyuubi no longer resource guards against Mika because he does sometimes. I still feed them separately, but if it's kibble (if I forget to defrost something) it would just be down in the kitchen and he will usually eat and if Mika wants to snack on some he has no problems sharing with her. When he's being fed a chicken wing though that's a whole different story. He's fed in his crate and he will still bark at Mika if she walks by him. He doesn't resource guard against antlers, bully sticks or other chews.

Here's a cute video of them together sharing an antler. Kyuubi though, doesn't really want it, he more so is messing around and annoying Mika. She lets out a whine at him that I find cute!

1 comment:

  1. we usually have an adjustment period between our dogs that results in resource guarding, but they usually always get over it in time.

    yay for Mika and Kyuubi :)

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