My wife and I have a 2 year old golden retriever. He has had a slight food aggression that seems to keep getting worse. When he was a puppy we would do the hand in bowl tricks and such and never really had much of an issue. We had another dog at the time that snapped at Graham(golden in question) and they would get into it a little. Once Graham got bigger than the other dog then the fights got worse and to the point where we gave the other dog back to my wife's parents because of the fights. I got it once trying to break a fight of theirs up. More recently my mother in law was staying at our house in September watching Graham and he was chewing on a pine cone. She went out attempting to get it from him and he attacked her. We then put him into training recommended by our vet. However we discontinued it because it was apparent that it was aggressive and more pain based and not what we wanted. So we continued working with him on our own. A couple weekends ago we had a couple situations where I tried to take a leaf from him and he went after me a bit. Then the next day we were working with him during a meal trying to get him in a more relaxed position. All of a sudden he lunged at my wife. I pulled on the leash and yelled no at him when he turned on me and attacked me. Luckily I was wearing a sweatshirt or my arms would have been much worse. At that time we were contemplating everything as we were both scared of him and his next attack. We decided on a behaviorist. She wanted us to get a basket muzzle before working with him. She had us feeding him with it on but then while he was eating nudging him away and putting him in a down stay. It was working for her but he again attacked me twice with the muzzle on although he got me again slightly despite the muzzle. She is now having us hand feeding him which is a 40 minute ordeal per session. His behavior is encouraging but we are still very apprehensive when we go back to feeding normally. I tried brushing him, which is another issue with him, today with the muzzle on and he again got a little aggressive(did not attack) again. I think we are both just on edge and worried about the next time. We both work 8-5 and we do not trust him out of his cage so he is in it for 9-10 hours a day. We are trying to get him on a couple of walks and ball play time a day. What are others experiences with these situations. Would he be better off with a family that can devote more time to him. He can be so sweet which is the most upsetting thing about the situation. His personality is so different than our other golden that we lost to cancer. Thanks in advance for your insight.