Eating behavior

Question
I cannot pet my four month old puppy while he's eating without him growling at and sometimes biting me.I must stop this behavior  someone gets injured and I have to get rid of him.How should I go about doing this?

Answer
Hi, Stephen,

You're wise to be concerned and try to correct this behavior while your puppy is still young.

I'm including a couple of articles which give good suggestions on how to establish yourself in a leadership role with your dog in a benign, kind way.

I want to emphasize what the People Empowerment handout says about controlling food; since mealtime is when you are having this issue, you should not leave his food out all day for him.  He should have specific feeding times; he should see you putting the food in his bowl, you should feed him a few pieces (from your hand to his mouth), he should have a time period in which to eat (15-20 min) and after that, the bowl gets taken up, regardless of whether it's empty or not.

If there are others in the home besides you, they should implement this as well so that he realizes he's at the bottom of the chain of command and all the other humans are above him.

http://www.marinhumanesociety.org/Behavior/Handouts/PEP.pdf
http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/educated-dog.pdf
http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/nilif.pdf