Enjoying some waffles on a Sunday morning.
Photo by Jenny Murray
If you don’t live with one, you probably know one. Those dogs who inhale their food, beg at the table, snatch that graham cracker out of your toddler’s hand so fast the kid barely knows it’s gone.
Enjoying some waffles on a Sunday morning.
Photo by Jenny Murray
For most of these dogs, it’s not that they’re actually hungry; it’s that they have developed a sense of entitlement to anything edible in their environment. It’s a respect issue. An impulse control issue. Get two of these dogs together under the same roof, and you’ve got the makings of some serious problems.
I live in a multi-dog, one-cat household. The king of the canine hill here can be a little food aggressive under the right circumstances. When I recently decided to add a Leonberger puppy to the mix, I set a few ground rules a month or so before he was due to arrive.
They are common sense rules, easy to follow, and by the time I picked Rocket up at the airport and brought him home, they were already a habit for Tug and Whimsy. We’ll start by going over one way to teach the “leave it” command. I find it simplifies this training, and it’s really handy on walks. Really handy. I wouldn’t have to feed my dogs for three days after a football game if they didn’t have a reliable “leave it.”
To teach “leave it,” get on the floor with your dog or sit in a chair with the dog in front of you. You’ll need two different types of treats. With one treat in your closed fist, hold it out for your dog to sniff. Let him nose around your hand. As soon as he looks away, praise and feed your dog the second type of treat with your other hand. Practice this a few times.
Then hold a treat in your open palm, closing your fist gently and saying, “Leave it” in a calm, upbeat voice when your dog tries to take it. As soon as he looks away, praise and feed the second type of treat from your other hand.
Progress to placing the treat on the floor, saying “leave it” and giving a treat when he looks away. Keep your hand close to cover the treat, just in case your dog can’t resist. Place your dog on a leash, in the house. Place a treat on the floor and walk your dog past the treat, saying “leave it” and praising and treating for success.
Now it’s time to broaden the horizon of this command for anything you want your dog to ignore be it food or squirrels. Just remember to ramp up slowly, always praising for success. As your dog begins to solidly understand that the command applies to anything he might like which you would prefer he didn’t have, you can slowly quit treating and just give verbal praise.
As handy as this command is, you don’t need it to get started, so here’s the program I follow with my brood:
• It should go without saying, but I know it can’t: The dogs are never fed from the table. I admit I was a serious transgressor in this arena until Rocket’s arrival. My dogs, like my friend, Dot, in the picture, are accomplished “fork eaters,” delicately removing a morsel of food without touching the tines. It can, however, contribute to food aggression if multiple dogs are gathered around you, each waiting for the first bite.
• If you have an infant or small children, the dogs should be out of the room while they eat, not clustered around the legs of the high chair.
• The only hand-fed item should be dog treats. This leads me to my next point:
• We don’t have treat parity around here. Sure, sometimes, even usually, all the dogs get a treat. Sometimes, though, only one dog gets a treat, sometimes two dogs. It’s not a big deal if you don’t make it a big deal; at least once the dogs come to understand what’s going on.
• While cooking, if food falls on the floor, the dogs are not allowed to pick it up. I know, the handy floor cleaning feature is one of the best things about having a dog, but IF you live with multiple dogs, and IF any one of them shows even a slight tendency toward food aggression, this can be a very competitive situation.
• “You only get to eat out of your own bow.l. Any leftover food (I know, I hear some of you sniggering at the thought of “leftover food”, but trust me, for some dogs, it happens) gets picked up and tossed out no matter how big you make your eyes.
• Along the same line, if Tug finishes his food before Whimsy, he isn’t allowed to go stand over her while she finishes. He has to go lie down and leave her alone.
• “Out” means that when I’m cooking, and I want you to leave, you go. Dogs are allowed as far as the entrance to the kitchen and no further after the “out” command.
• Preventing counter-surfing is best handled by management. Don’t leave food out. Just don’t. Take a minute and put it in the fridge, a cupboard, wherever, but the ability to leave food out and have your dog reliably ignore it takes a lot of training. Maturity. Impulse control. At 7 months and more than 100 pounds, Rocket is at a very handy counter-surfing height at a young age. It would be unfair to expect him to ignore that tasty loaf of bread or chunk of cheese. It’s something else we’ll work on when he’s older, but for now, I keep the counters bare.
That’s it. A list of simple rules that make living with a chow hound easier and safer. At first it’s hard. At mealtime, Tug spent a solid week sitting next to me drooling, waiting for the hand out he was sure was going to come before he gave up and climbed on the bed for a nap. Like many things, new is hard. Once it becomes commonplace, it’s easy. So persevere. For some dogs progress will be quick, for others, not so much. Give your dog a chance and be consistent. You’ll amaze yourself with the results.
Amy Samida was a professional groomer prior to her career in veterinary nursing. She began training dogs as a child. Amy is now the owner of Naughty Dog Cafe in Ann Arbor. She can be reached at amy@naughtydogcafe.com or 734-276-3522
jenny murray
Sun, Jul 11, 2010 : 9:21 a.m.
Awwww, there's my waffler…spoiled rotten for all the world to see. Great post, Amy. Lots of good ideas. Dot doesn't agree with any of them, by the way.;-)
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