food aggression

Definitely sounds like your dog needs rules and basic obedience... also you mentioned he is hyper, make sure you walk him lots and lots, maybe walk him alone without the other dog, to make sure he gets trained during that walk...

My recommendation would also be to work more on behaviour modification (if you can with him before deciding to re-home) This was clearly more of an accident since, that I am sure won't happen again. Never leave them alone together again ESPECIALLY with the dogfood, now that you know how bad it is.

I would do what has previously discussed, I am sure in other threads, making your dog focus on you and handfeeding, so that he has to 'work' for every bit of food... Then when you have control over him, and you will, let your son put the dish down, while the dog has to sit/stay and get your son to release the dog with a okay... so he starts to knows food comes from your son, also.
Sometimes this doesn't take long at all, just keep doing it :)

Looks like he needs boundaries around your son, and the other dog, so that you include them in your alpha position, aka don't let dog on furniture with the kids, and make the dog move instead of having the kids walk around him...

Hope there is a couple of tidbits in here that may work for ya :)
 
Smoke has a food aggression problem as well, but he only directs his aggression at our other dog, not at people, so the advice I have might need to be tweaked to account for your son.

I paid handsomely for a behaviourist after my husband was bitten trying to break up a food related fighting incident between Smoke and Apollo. Her advice was to leash both dogs, starting out with them on opposite sides of our biggest room. We were to put down the food dishes and immediately remove Smoke's dish if he started barking, growling, or snapping. Once he calmed down he would be allowed to have his food back. The idea was to teach him that being aggressive actually made his food go away, and relaxing meant that the food would stay. Then we would gradually move them closer together until they could eat side by side.

This method was very time consuming and took a long time to produce results. The first few times we did this it took forever for Smoke to relax so that he could have his food, and then as soon as he got it he would get wound up again and we'd have to take it away. We didn't have time to even do this in the mornings before work so in the mornings they had to eat in their crates, which I think slowed our progress. All that being said, though, it has worked. I no longer have to worry about starting a war just because I'd like to give them each a cookie :wink2:
 
You mentioned that your dog doesn't get aggressive when your kids have the food and he wants it? Can you get your kids to feed him his meal kibble by kibble from their hand? It might help if your dog gives your kids the same respect as he does you and your other half if he sees your kids as resource controllers too. Like what Toffee's mom suggested.

Your kids are abit too young to do any "exchange" training I would think (ie. start with the dog exchanging a super low value item for a higher value treat and work up to exchanging a high value item for something even better so the dog learns that if it relinquishes what it has instead of guarding it as it does now, it gets something even better). For now I would manage the situation so that the dog never gets to repeat the snarling or biting with your kids ever again. You should speak with your kids (at least the elder one) and make sure they can't come into contact with the dog (maybe put the crate in a room and close the door?) when it is eating.
 
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