How to keep paws off off from the table; Counter surfing
There is no doubt that dogs looves food. When food is present in front of dogs, even if dogs were not hungry, they would grab the food and eat it. That is a dog's natural instinct.
Our stumpy corgi "Palette" is 4 years old, and she has never self serve any food off from table except once. She is pretty good about not stealing food off from table. However, bread is the only food she has hard time to turn her head away.
One day, we had bread sticks along with soup. One moment, we left the table thinking we can trust her and she will be good about leaving the food on table as usual,not grabbing food and self serve. That was our mistake. In the split second, she put her paw on kitchen table, grabbed the paper napkin and pull to her and dropped my husband's whole bread sticks onto carpet. We heard the sound and, looked back. Here she was trying to eat the one foot long thin bread sticks as fast as she can before she gets caught. She was fed before she ate the bread, and it is clear that she did not take it from hunger.Just couldn't resist with the enticing smell of the food.
Since then, we make sure we put the chair away from table and don't leave the food on table. That is something you can do as prevention of counter surfing.
If you look through youtube for videos of dogs with food, you would come across some videos that show letting the dogs eat on table like human and praising them "Good boy..",or owners intentionally put the food on counter and let the dogs work for it etc..
For one moment, those videos seems funny, but by putting food on tables or counter and letting the dogs work for it probably will be teaching the dogs how to work for it without consciousness. Dogs would not know when you think grabbing the food is ok and self serve and when you would not be happy when they grabbed the food off from the counter or table. I think you should not send the mixed message to them.
Counter surfing can also be potentially dangerous to dogs. If you have kids in the house and if they left a bag of chocolate on the table, and if your dogs ate a whole bag of them, that is very dangerous. As you have read in the previous entry titled "Chocolate,caffeine, and cacao ", chocolate is toxic for dogs. Not just that food could be dangerous but, it could be dangerous if/when something fell onto them. They can get hurt in the process of counter surfing.
So, what you can do to help curb the counter surfing problems?
1. As I have mentioned above, I think you should not give them any opportunity to get to food on table. That includes followings.
- You should not leave the food on counter/table.
- You should not put food on table intentionally and let your dog work for the food on table.
- You should not feed from table at dinner time
- You should not praise your dogs for working for the food on table that includes laughing. Any attentions from you can become reinforcement.
2. Another thing I think it important is to exercise your dogs.
Walk your dogs. Obviously, dogs can get overheat under the hot weather and,not advisable to go for walk on hot days. In such case, you can do training or you can play "Find it game" or play ball/Frisbee inside the house.. You can give them mental exercise by interacting with your dogs inside the house. This is not just for your dogs' mental exercise. Interacting with your dogs make your bond with them stronger and fun.
Bored dogs can find themselves a job. It can be chewing, or other type of behavior problems.
3. As soon as your dogs put their paws on you at meal time, say "off" and as soon as they put their paw on floor, praise them. They may try a couple of times to test but they would down-stay at dinner time once they know they get nothing from you.
4. Also, you can teach your dogs to down-stay at one spot at meal time. If you teach your dogs to down-stay at one specific spot, as soon as they left the spot, you will stand up and bring them back to the spot by walking toward the spot using your body. As soon as they settle down on that specific spot, reward praise them.
Our dog "Palette" sometime use our meal time as "me-time" and chew her Antler on her fluffy bed near the table.
On the talk of counter surfing, I came across dog clicker training video on counter surfing at youtube. I think this is easy to understand how to clicker training your dog not to self serve the food aka counter surfing. I have not used low table to create similar environment to counter surfing and train good behavior around food on table. This maybe good idea to reinforce the good behavior around food on table with clicker.
What is clicker training?
You can read previous entry titled "Clicker training; Clicker is your friend" here .
If you are a blog subscriber or reading from facebook,please click here to watch the video.
So,I think it is best for you to make sure what food you would use in the training. Know what are toxic to dogs. I think idea is to whatever food on plate, but work up from not so interesting food to high valued food on the plate. I hear many dogs loves apple, but Palette hates apple. So, considering she does not like an apple, small sliced apple on the plate to start with maybe good starting point for us to work together on the training.
You can read some list of toxic food for dogs at petalia.com website here .
Our stumpy corgi "Palette" is 4 years old, and she has never self serve any food off from table except once. She is pretty good about not stealing food off from table. However, bread is the only food she has hard time to turn her head away.
One day, we had bread sticks along with soup. One moment, we left the table thinking we can trust her and she will be good about leaving the food on table as usual,not grabbing food and self serve. That was our mistake. In the split second, she put her paw on kitchen table, grabbed the paper napkin and pull to her and dropped my husband's whole bread sticks onto carpet. We heard the sound and, looked back. Here she was trying to eat the one foot long thin bread sticks as fast as she can before she gets caught. She was fed before she ate the bread, and it is clear that she did not take it from hunger.Just couldn't resist with the enticing smell of the food.
Since then, we make sure we put the chair away from table and don't leave the food on table. That is something you can do as prevention of counter surfing.
If you look through youtube for videos of dogs with food, you would come across some videos that show letting the dogs eat on table like human and praising them "Good boy..",or owners intentionally put the food on counter and let the dogs work for it etc..
For one moment, those videos seems funny, but by putting food on tables or counter and letting the dogs work for it probably will be teaching the dogs how to work for it without consciousness. Dogs would not know when you think grabbing the food is ok and self serve and when you would not be happy when they grabbed the food off from the counter or table. I think you should not send the mixed message to them.
Counter surfing can also be potentially dangerous to dogs. If you have kids in the house and if they left a bag of chocolate on the table, and if your dogs ate a whole bag of them, that is very dangerous. As you have read in the previous entry titled "Chocolate,caffeine, and cacao ", chocolate is toxic for dogs. Not just that food could be dangerous but, it could be dangerous if/when something fell onto them. They can get hurt in the process of counter surfing.
So, what you can do to help curb the counter surfing problems?
1. As I have mentioned above, I think you should not give them any opportunity to get to food on table. That includes followings.
- You should not leave the food on counter/table.
- You should not put food on table intentionally and let your dog work for the food on table.
- You should not feed from table at dinner time
- You should not praise your dogs for working for the food on table that includes laughing. Any attentions from you can become reinforcement.
2. Another thing I think it important is to exercise your dogs.
Walk your dogs. Obviously, dogs can get overheat under the hot weather and,not advisable to go for walk on hot days. In such case, you can do training or you can play "Find it game" or play ball/Frisbee inside the house.. You can give them mental exercise by interacting with your dogs inside the house. This is not just for your dogs' mental exercise. Interacting with your dogs make your bond with them stronger and fun.
Bored dogs can find themselves a job. It can be chewing, or other type of behavior problems.
3. As soon as your dogs put their paws on you at meal time, say "off" and as soon as they put their paw on floor, praise them. They may try a couple of times to test but they would down-stay at dinner time once they know they get nothing from you.
4. Also, you can teach your dogs to down-stay at one spot at meal time. If you teach your dogs to down-stay at one specific spot, as soon as they left the spot, you will stand up and bring them back to the spot by walking toward the spot using your body. As soon as they settle down on that specific spot, reward praise them.
Our dog "Palette" sometime use our meal time as "me-time" and chew her Antler on her fluffy bed near the table.
On the talk of counter surfing, I came across dog clicker training video on counter surfing at youtube. I think this is easy to understand how to clicker training your dog not to self serve the food aka counter surfing. I have not used low table to create similar environment to counter surfing and train good behavior around food on table. This maybe good idea to reinforce the good behavior around food on table with clicker.
What is clicker training?
You can read previous entry titled "Clicker training; Clicker is your friend" here .
If you are a blog subscriber or reading from facebook,please click here to watch the video.
In the video above, I notice she is using the Apple core on the plate. However, apple seeds are toxic for dogs because it contains "cyanogenic glycosides"
So,I think it is best for you to make sure what food you would use in the training. Know what are toxic to dogs. I think idea is to whatever food on plate, but work up from not so interesting food to high valued food on the plate. I hear many dogs loves apple, but Palette hates apple. So, considering she does not like an apple, small sliced apple on the plate to start with maybe good starting point for us to work together on the training.
You can read some list of toxic food for dogs at petalia.com website here .
Lots of good info in this post as usual. I agree about the counter surfing being a very BAD trick to teach and you gave some very good reasons for it... some of which I hadn't even thought of.
Thanks, too, for giving a good website to learn about toxic things for animals!
Reply to this
Being consistent not giving in for those cute begging eyes of our furry friends is tough one sometimes
Reply to this