[VENT] My pit is becoming the stereotype

Yes. This is because the pit will start chewing on something in the yard and consider it hers and/or a toy. So when the BC comes around wanting to play/interact, the pit turns aggressive.

The food thing is a problem we are always working on. We feed them separately of course. We have tried doing it where they can see each other (with gate separation) and where they can't see each other. Neither setting has given much improvement. But the food aggression is transferring to the door. When we let them in from playing, at certain times, they know it's feeding time. The pit will guard the door or guard whatever is leading to the feeding zone. As stated in another reply, we are working on getting them to sit in their own place before being called into the house so the pit doesnt guard the door. It's a work in progress. The BC's attention span is short, and the pit does well in training. So when the pit is behaving and the BC is only sat and stayed for 15 seconds, the pit becomes aggressive. She becomes aggressive because the BC is circling around her trying to initiate play, and it's known that we have training treats in hand.

We never intentionally put either one of them in a situation that would spark aggression. We never intentionally set the pit up for failure. When the pit makes anything her toy, it can be challenging. That's why we supervise almost constantly to make sure a stick doesnt cause a fight. The stick thing happened once. We learned from it. Now we're on the look out for things like that as well...

And actually we haven't had problems that started due to affection from someone since we learned it was an issue.

/r/dogs Thread Parent