What do dogs resource guard?

The list of things that dogs can guard is endless, as it is all about the learning history of that dog and the reason why they are guarding in the first place, the most common examples of things that dogs tend to guard –

I contacted Ellie after searching through the ABTC listings of accredited behaviourists – I had originally booked an appointment with a trainer but after reading reviews that she sprays water at dogs I was horrified and wanted to find someone accredited and who used positive reinforcement techniques.

I was originally apprehensive about an appointment on Zoom rather than face to face but Ellie reassured me that we would spend more time talking about the issues at hand via Zoom rather than worrying about dog behaviour when face to face and she was absolutely right!

Rolo is an almost 2 year old Border Collie/German Shepherd mix who I rescued from Spain. He had originally been in 2 previous families, as well as a foster home while the shelter tried to rehome him.

He wasn’t receiving the right attention in terms of enrichment or exercise and as a large, and very clever and sensitive dog, he had become very stressed. Add into the mix a 40 hour journey over from Spain in a van and once he arrived, he had become overwhelmed and had bitten my neighbours 3 year old daughter.

This was an incredibly stressful time for me and as soon as I contacted Ellie I felt immediately reassured that I’d be able to get through the stress!

I had 2 sessions over Zoom and both were totally invaluable. Not only did I come out with a tonne of practical tips, but I felt really validated that I wasn’t the only dog owner in the world to experience issues and I felt very listened to and that there was a clear path forward for me and Rolo.

What I was particularly impressed by (and hadn’t expected) was the level of breed specific information that Ellie was able to give to me.

She was able to clearly delineate why and what Rolo was doing based on his genetics and upbringing, and that in itself just made so much sense as to why he was behaving in certain ways.

This was completely above and beyond any of my frantic googling both before and after he arrived and showed why I really needed specific expertise from an accredited behaviourist.

A lot of the behaviours we worked on were around de-stressing Rolo and helping him to settle into his new life. He was resource guarding (new toys and food) and Ellie had some very practical training examples to help him reduce his desire to guard. He also needed help with desensitising to the car, and to his harness, both of which he hated and ran away from.

Ellie’s philosophy of allowing him to have some control back in his life by allowing him to make choices really resonated with me, and worked immediately with Rolo.

I really valued Ellie being available on Whatsapp to answer additional questions, and send videos to, so she could assess how we were doing and suggest tweaks, as well as her sending very specific training videos so we had a visual guide of what we needed to do.

Rolo is now 8 weeks into his new life in the UK and is so much more mellow than when he arrived! We still have lots to work on, but the techniques of positive reinforcement and allowing him to make his own choices have really worked well on him, and he is showing significantly less stressed behaviour.