Hurricane Deck

I, in my infinate inability to keep my mouth shut, offered someone training advice on a public forum for their resource guarding Rat Terrier. I told them that when he does the growling bit, calmly walk over, pick him up by the scruff of the neck, and put him in his kennel for a few hours. In my own experience with Ratties, this works pretty well because the dog learns that if you attempt to guard something, you will be corrected and then removed from your treasure and the rest of the pack. I didn't think that this was in any way controversial. Oh, how wrong I was! I found out that I might as well have told her to punt the dog like a football across the room, because that is what "scruffing" is to the "All Positive" fanatics. Of course, their suggestions would lead to reinforcement of the behavior or out and out terror. There were two camps - the first camp said to "redirect the dog's behavior by offering it a treat to give up it's treasure...