Jean Donaldson's book, "Mine!" arrived today. It appears to be
another mainstream text on dog training. The essence of her approach
for training a resource guarder is to desensitize the dog in slow,
patient increments, using rewards to condition a positive response at
every stage.

"Counterconditioning is about changing associations... How this looks
in actual treatment is the presentation of a low-enough intensity, or
sub-threshold, version of the trigger, immediately followed by a
potent, pleasant counter-conditioning stimulus... If, at any point,
the dog shows the original reaction to the trigger, it means the
intensity of the presentation is super-threshold. It is important to
then back off to a reduced trigger intensity and work back up
gradually again."

Jean also discusses the dog who growls when being handled, e.g.,
grooming. She asserts this is the same type of problem and outlines
lengthy (60-step) process of sub-threshold stimuli and rewards.

"Remember to remain on the step you're on until the dog is thoroughly
comfortable and demonstrating his good CER [conditioned emotional
response] in anticipation of the goodie you're about to provide."

Now, what are the most common problems that occur when trainers
attempt to treat resource guarding? Number one on the list, according
to Jean Donaldson: "Pushing the dog super-threshold by advancing too
quickly up the hierarchy rungs before the CER is well established at
the previous level."

To which she adds:

"What I referred to earlier as skating on thin ice in fear and
aggression rehab is at virtual epidemic level among dog trainers... If
a dog is struggling at a certain step, is is very unwise to advance to
the next. It is, in fact, more prudent to back off and do easier
exercises and then take a stab at the problematic rung from a
different angle, i.e., by juggling other variables."

All in all, this little book is pretty much what I expected.

Charlie