Quote Originally Posted by Giselle
A dog testing the waters is not a dominant dog. Like I said, from 6-10 months is the first rebellion stage. It's a completely normal part of puppy development. But aside from debating whether or not Chloe is dominant or fearful or disrespectful, the problem is that she's protecting her food. The only way you can successfully remedy that is to have a concrete "Give" or "Drop it". The best method is not to correct her when she growls but to prevent her from putting on the defense at all.

Give her a yummy treat and then take the resource away. Repeat repeat repeat. You, of course, will be the main trainer, but encourage your family members to help you every once in a while. Say, have your family gather together for 5 minutes once a week and help train her. If they aren't willing to help, warn them that Chloe's snaps could becoming skin-breaking lunges and that's not exaggerating. I made this same mistake with my first dog and he broke skin several times.

As long as you have a concrete "Give" and you practice every day, Chloe should listen no matter who's commanding and no matter what she has in her mouth. "Give" is the single most important command I've taught Ivy and she listens to my trainer, my parents, my friends, and she listens no matter what is in her mouth - even a raw bone. If crazy Ivy can do it, Chloe should breeze through it!
I have no doubt that Chloe is possessive over high valued food items (she's occasionally been over nonfood items, but very rarely). The very first time I gave her a rawhide treat she snarled at me when I walked by her. I sat down and worked with her and it got to the point that I could have my han by her head while she was chewing on it, but she was very tense. I traded a training treat for the rawhide and she's not had a rawhide since.
I can get her to drop anything, no matter what the value, for a pea sized training treat, but that is the extent of it. I don't carry broken up peices of Begg'n Strips in my pocket 24/7, nor does anyone else I know personally, so this doesn't do me a lot of good. I can't seem to get her to understand that the command means the same thing even when I don't have treats.

How I tought Sadie to drop it was when I was playing tug with her I would tell her "Thank you" whenever I won the toy back. After she seemed to get the idea, I would tell her "Thank you" and then cease all playtime until she gave me the toy. Then she was praised and the game would start up again. It got to the point with her that I could tell her "thank you" in the middle of an intense game of tug and she'd let go of it. Her reward when she did that was that she'd get the toy back and the game would resume.

Chloe doesn't seem to get the concept of that. I was told it might be helpful to switch toys (dog drops one toy and immeadiatly gets to play with another) but she gets so focused on one toy, it doesn't matter what the value of the toy is to her, she won't play with any other toy other than the one she was playing with at the moment.