Is she teachable?

I like to think that all my dogs are teachable. If any of them charged outside the gate when it's opened, they get an earful and a few spanks for good measure. The invisible line at the gate cannot be breached.  That's the rule.

Feeding time was a huge problem when Xena first came. Her family was destitute. They lived in an abandoned house where scavenging (for food) was the order of the day.  We adopted her when she was 2 weeks old.  She had adorable eyes. They were blue. I have her picture here somewhere. Let me see if I can scare them up.

Yup!  Here it is.

Like I said, feeding time was a huge problem.  (Food Aggression, I think it's called.) She grappled with her food and was apt to turn aggressive at a moment's notice. Food brawls exploded every now and then.

We needed a tactical approach.

At a subsequent feed, I held her bowl in my hand and waited patiently for her gaze to shift from the bowl to me. It took an eternity but she finally obliged and when she did, FOOD became available. This ritual was repeated at every meal until we reached a stage where the shifting of her gaze became instantaneous.  Stage 1 accomplished.  

When the food was placed before her, she went at it like a ravenous wolf. It wasn't her fault, you understand? One would blame that on poor upbringing, which justified Stage 2 by the way.

Having first ensured that she remained calm, I placed her bowl of food slowly on the floor. This bowl was retracted when she as much as look at it.  In time, she learned to focus her attention on me while the bowl was being lowered.  I didn't stop there.  I held out my fingers and started counting from 1 to 5.  The counting goes back to 1 each time she shifted her gaze. When I reached 5, I muttered "Okay" and she gets her food.

In time, the counting went on to 20 before she got her food.

In the picture on the right, her focus was so intense that she did not pay any attention to the red food pellet on her head. Where am I going with this? Well, the whole idea is to snap her out of her excited state of mind where she can be unpredictable and to get her to a calm, submissive state of mind where I am in control. Her table manners improved considerably but I wouldn't recommend that you invite her to dinner.