[Venkman reads this carefully for a few minutes, idly petting Garfield.]
alright, off the top of my head heres some things that could cause that sort of behavior: -past food insecurity, very likely because he was wild and definitely had to scavenge for food; could still be in the "i must eat constantly because i dont know when i'll get a chance to eat again" stage. especially since you caught him in winter when food is already scarce -possibly owned by another trainer before you, who spoiled him before releasing him, thus getting him used to large quantities of food -local trainers might have been feeding him regularly, thus letting him associate humans with food rewards, and humans that don't automatically offer him food frustrate him as a result
... and ok basically you got him to REALLY associate aggression with food rewards from the sounds of things. you had the right intentions, but you didn't really tackle the PROBLEM, IE him showing aggression over food, and instead rewarded one aspect of the problem(aggression towards other pokemon) and did nothing about the other(showing aggression towards people). so of course he was going to assume that the latter was still a-ok. and even if he DIDN'T, what were you gonna do if he attacked another pokemon outside of battle just because he wanted a reward?
that said, you could maybe refine that into something that works, if you can come up with a suitable punishment- and NO electric shocks, Egon- for when he acts out. but i'd still try to shy away from ANY positive association between food and aggression at this point
no subject
alright, off the top of my head heres some things that could cause that sort of behavior:
-past food insecurity, very likely because he was wild and definitely had to scavenge for food; could still be in the "i must eat constantly because i dont know when i'll get a chance to eat again" stage. especially since you caught him in winter when food is already scarce
-possibly owned by another trainer before you, who spoiled him before releasing him, thus getting him used to large quantities of food
-local trainers might have been feeding him regularly, thus letting him associate humans with food rewards, and humans that don't automatically offer him food frustrate him as a result
... and ok basically you got him to REALLY associate aggression with food rewards from the sounds of things. you had the right intentions, but you didn't really tackle the PROBLEM, IE him showing aggression over food, and instead rewarded one aspect of the problem(aggression towards other pokemon) and did nothing about the other(showing aggression towards people). so of course he was going to assume that the latter was still a-ok. and even if he DIDN'T, what were you gonna do if he attacked another pokemon outside of battle just because he wanted a reward?
that said, you could maybe refine that into something that works, if you can come up with a suitable punishment- and NO electric shocks, Egon- for when he acts out. but i'd still try to shy away from ANY positive association between food and aggression at this point