We did something similar to determine any aggression when we got our dog. My wife and I would take his dish or favorite toy and praise him when giving it back. I didn’t think about adding a treat in the dish though, that is smart, but I’m not sure he would get the correlation as he is pretty aloof when it comes to treats. Praise seems to work with him though. He did have one negative encounter with a child that was inexperienced with dogs that grabbed him from behind, but we haven’t seen the same behavior since.
Another thing that was awesome is we did the ten week dog training through the Calgary Humane society. I really wish this was mandatory for all dog owners as it was a lot of fun and had a lot of great tips and tricks. Now if we could only get him to stop making messes on the floor when it’s -20 outside...haha.
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