Food aggression

[teemu]

Hey all,

I mentioned this in the earlier thread, but after a couple of weeks, it's now become apparent that the biggest issue with just handling Kaneli (our new girl) is her food aggression. To put it simply, she's ferocious about food. She expects a seed or a leaf or something else every time she is handled, and if I actually have something for her, she is incredibly aggressive/defensive about it. If I don't give it fast enough, she starts screaming her head off, and if my hand is anywhere near her when she gets something, she also screams really loud, genuinely like a piglet, and actually does warning lunges at me (rushing at my hand and roughly shoving it off). I'm pretty sure that if I didn't retreat, she'd be ready to actually bite. After she gets some treat (or even just forage, she is equally insane about that), she shouts people off for even moving near her cage until it's eaten, and basically goes into overdrive just scarfing it down as quickly as possible. She's obviously terrified that someone is going to take it away from her at any moment, and in full fight mode until it's gone.

After the food is gone, she's back to being a total darling and entirely relaxed. She also relaxes if we offer her scratches or petting instead of food, but she always initially expects and wants the food.

This is obviously not a good or healthy habit. Even if I can dump something in front of her and quickly flee the scene, she clearly needs to be taught out of actually violently demanding food from people and then lashing out at them for not getting lost. Her interactions with us are very food-motivated, even more so after she has now fully realized that we are in possession of all the good stuff, and she gets very demanding if it doesn't look like she's getting something. She's clearly had a hard time with this stuff in her previous home, and is deadly serious about food. Either she has had to defend her food very fiercely from others, or maybe she has even experienced notable amounts of hunger (as I have noted, she is runty for her age)...

Does anyone here have experience with training something like this out of a degu? I do know that many rescue dogs have similar bad habits that need to be trained out, so it could be that there's something there, but in any case I need to come up with ways to get her to ease up on food. I'm thinking that it's probably something where I just need to build up her tolerance over time, possibly by gradually increasing my presence as she is eating (gloves may be necessary here). The one thing she kind of tolerates is eating sesame seeds out of my hand, but oh boy if the hand ever moves...

(Pipari has a slightly similar habit where she roughly pushes my hand out of the way if I put something down, but she does not ever actually attack my hand or even complain if I don't remove it, so I think that is probably an acceptable level of possessiveness, at least.)

[moletteuk]

Sorry, I don't really have experience of this, so I don't have specific advise. I agree that that the aggression does need some resistance from you to avoid it getting reinforced as being effective, so, yeah, gloves if necessary. It sounds like this whole behaviour will need some very careful thought, like is it better to give treats more or less often? I think the small seeds on the hand is a good idea, and her having unlimited basic foods. Maybe you can sit and talk to her softly while she is squealing like a pig.

[winic1]

Can you find or create some kind of remote food dispenser? Something you could load the treats into, and then trigger (even just by pulling a string) when you are not right at the cage and no hands are visible? So this way you take the hands/humans out of getting treats and food, and she stops associating you with this life-and-death event of getting food.
Or maybe even just something where you could dump the food down a tube that's on the side of the cage, so she doesn't see the hands actually delivering it, if she sees that food appears over here at the side wall when humans approach, she'll go to the food place and not scream at you up front at the door. Maybe redirecting her aggression might calm it down?

[bouncy]

Snatcha started off like that. Both of them are extremely protective of food, too.

Luckily, they were timid when I opened the cage door, so they weren't around when I put food in the bowl. When they were out, I only gave them a seed when they came up to me, and I gave them one. They then had goositters spoiling them for a couple of months, so they could only have seeds when they came in for an hour a day, and only through the bars. If they misbehaved, they got nothing. Since I've been back, I've been treating them like my other good. They'll squeak, growl, stamp, and try to get rid of each other, and will growl at me, but I only split the seeds on the floor into two piles instead of taking anything away, and they seem to accept there's no threat from me.

Does this help at all?

[teemu]

I am still kind of attempting to scope how to best approach this, since she's new and I haven't yet got as good a read on her. She is clearly very stressed about food, and combined with health issues that potentially indicate nutrient deficiencies (her smaller size, and the ear issues she has can also potentially be caused by improper diet or other lifestyle issues), her behavior towards other degus and her history, it's easy to see why she goes into full crisis mode when there is anything more interesting and exclusive than just the regular, very dull food pellets. So far I've tried simply not reacting to her aggression any more than is absolutely necessary, and just staying there while she eats. She is very agitated about it, but is also in a panic to eat so it kind of works.

I also tried palm-feeding her, but this turned out to be a big mistake since my hand being on the food made her get increasingly hostile and agitated as she ate, to the point that I was actually not sure whether I should just put it down or keep the hand there. She was so high-strung that both options (move hand with food, potentially looking like I'm stealing it, or keep the hand on the food) seemed like I might actually get bit. So I'm not doing that again, in any case!

I think that I have to simply get her to internalize that even if there are people here, nobody is going to steal her food. It will probably take a very long time. As is, she is so stressed about food that if she sees me giving anyone else anything, she starts absolutely howling in outrage - even after I first gave her something so that she can be sure that she is not being left out. Yesterday she sat there screaming at me and the girls with a big peanut in her mouth, just staring through the bars at us.

It's really shocking, since she is totally different when she does not actually have food. Even if she notices that treats are being handled or hears rustling, she just gets excited and comes look, no aggression at all. But the second she gets something in her mouth, it's a total crisis situation. So the problem isn't that she doesn't want to approach me or anything, but just that she seems to be very traumatized towards actually eating (possibly because she has had to compete for food, and has been distressed that someone is going to take hers?).

She is quite lovable and very smart otherwise. She already seems to recognize her name (yet she didn't recognize her old one at all...), and she's very receptive to general handling (doesn't want to be held yet, but that is pretty common anyway) from both me and my wife. I have a good deal of hope that she will get over her food issues with time and effort, because she does not seem aggressive or like she suffers from serious personality flaws otherwise. She just needs to learn that eating is safe here.

[teemu]

I've been able to start slowly training her by forcing her to climb out of the cage and to my arm to get her treats. She now comes, takes it and goes back into the cage without any issues. She does start screaming when she's back in the cage, just like before, but I think it's a good sign that she can at least observe some basic manners when coming to get her treats.

I'm also a bit unsure now as to whether it really is just fear of having her food taken away. She screams at me if she feels I'm too close when she's eating, if she feels she hasn't gotten enough, and if she sees me giving anything to others. She's just really anxious and high-wired about food and wants a lot of it, is I suppose the short of it. But I guess we're slowly finding ways to manage this.

[teemu]

Well, despite many months of effort, it hasn't gotten notably better. She screams her head off whenever there is food, in almost any situation save those where I allow her to fetch some food, stay absolutely motionless and do it exactly as I have done it before. Any interaction during this, even just accidentally moving, makes her scream bloody murder. Sometimes she even cusses me out and runs back to challenge me, as if she's convinced I will somehow come after her and steal her food. In those situations I have stood my ground and kept my hand exactly where it is, not putting it closer or taking it out. She usually realizes quite quickly that I won't back down or come after her, and just flees to eat.

I've tried multiple different approaches, but she is just absolutely stressed out over it and so *loud*. If she gets agitated at all past her usual screaming, she will just stand up and scream at me as loud as possible, in sheer anger that I have not heard before save in actual fights or extreme situations. It's so startling, since when there's no food she is totally quiet and actually quite sweet, coming over to be groomed and all. Of course, she usually clearly expects food and starts to get annoyed if it looks like she won't be getting any.

Outside the food issues, she is not very scared or anxious as such. She has been outside the cage a few times, and in a play space she is quiet, curious and active. She does become agitated if there's food and I am too close, but notably she is actually more relaxed about it there. Even when she once accidentally fell out of the cage, she did not seem afraid at all in an unfamiliar space, and actually started trying to raid the food stockpile as soon as she found it. So she's at least not too afraid. Almost impossible to handle (beyond grooming and such) though, she absolutely hates being held.

And she hates other degus with a passion. The few times I've held someone while being close to her cage, she rushes over and starts getting increasingly furious over it. I'm starting to wonder if it might be better to actually put her in a different room where she won't have to even perceive anyone else...