[Pet dogs] I was cutting open a fresh bag of dog food, and one of my dogs decided to steal the strip at the top that I cut off the bag and is now resource guarding it

I'd say it's cute, but it's not exactly a good thing.

I was literally opening the bag to give her food (which she did end up abandoning the strip when she realized she was being fed), but until I put food into her bowl she was more interested in that strip of plastic than the actual bag of food

Yeah, I do want to break her of the resource guarding, but most of the tips I see online are just 'feed them in a separate area'

Which I do feed her in her crate, but it doesn't solve 'resource guarding a random object she has suddenly decided is valuable'

Fortunately, she's only eight pounds, so there's no actual danger, it's just not ideal

Unless she catches you with a bite.

I know I've seen Cesar Milan do all kinds of resource guarding correction, but it mostly involves establishing that everything is yours until access is granted.

From what I've hard Cesar Milan isn't actually that skilled of a trainer and is mostly a TV personality, though

Yeah.

His stance on baby talk is not supported by science. Dogs actually recognize the intonation-shift of pet-directed speech at being to them.

The tricky thing with her is her behavior isn't on the items you'd expect

Like she's fine with other dogs playing with her toys

I wonder if it's because she's learned to recognize items I'd usually throw away, so she expects those items to be taken away, but stuff she recognizes as things I never take away, like stuffed animals, she doesn't worry about because they're always going to be there

Did she grab it from you or pick it up from where you left it?

She picked it up from where I left it

I mean, I might look at stuff on not giving up toys rather than food. If she starts actually taking things from you to guard, it's a lot more of a red flag.

Yeah, this is more 'she finds a thing she likes and wants to keep it', but usually with stuff like that if you wait a while she loses interest and you can take it freely

Yeah. Just don't challenge her on it and get it when you can.

That's what I usually do

It's probably more important to ignore her when she gets like that. Don't scold, just turn your back and don't respond.

Which is honestly pretty easy to do