Baaaaad dog! How to cure counter surfing?

[Alexandra]

I am fostering a standard poodle. I am just crazy about him. He really only has one fault and that is that he thinks food on the counter is fair game. He has tremedous reach! This afternoon he helped himself to some fabulous shredded bbq pork!

Sneaky rascal!

Thanks for any thoughts on this.

[Lara in Colo]

booby trap the counters----mouse traps??? something that is noisy and scary when touched. Maybe hide and watch and blow a whistle??

 

 

Lara

[SonshineLearner]

Get use to it? We crate our dog when we eat or are cooking... to save him from being yelled at! Counters are fair game as far as he's concerned... I think he feels like he should be getting praised for "hunting" for his food!

 

Hornblower has some more productive ways of training... clicker training... etc... :) If you hunt for dogs ... you'll see tons of her ideas and where to go for training... (online) Course, crating works better than yelling or beating.... (which I have to say... my dog has been threatened with.... good thing we haven't followed through.... but... the crate works..)

 

Since you're fostering... if you could get him trained...it'd be cool. The other thing that was good... before it broke... was our kitchen gate... (leftover from baby years...)

 

But, we love our pup... and he's worth it :)

[Amy Jo]

Remove food from the counters. Use a dog crate (I feed my dog in hers, and I think she likes the privacy) or let the dog in the yard if you have one. You could try a squirt from a water bottle, or maybe mousetraps (upside down). But unless you are going to catch him in the act, do not "reward" him by leaving food on the counter.

Amy

[ktgrok]

My best advice would be a doggie gate keeping the dog out of the kitchen :)

 

Seriously, once they have the habit it's REALLY hard to break, because you can punish all day long, but if every so often they get pulled pork, they are going to keep trying ;)

[simka2]

I'm laughing because my Dane used to do this :) I know everyone says not to yell, but my Dane hates be in trouble :) So we would give a stern yell and eventually he stopped.

[hornblower]

I think this is fundamentally a very hard thing to deal with IF you're committed to staying in the positive training camp & not administering punishment/aversives.

 

If you want to stay in the positive camp, you

 

1) train yourself and everyone else to put food away

 

2) train Zen http://www.dragonflyllama.com/%20dogs/levels/LevelBehaviours/TL26Zen.html

(The intro to this training is here http://www.dragonflyllama.com/%20dogs/levels/LevelBehaviours/LevelsBook.html)

 

3) tether the dog to you &/or crate whenever stuff is on the counter & can't be put away. Tethering is more conducive to training b/e it gives the dog lots of opportunities to practice being near counters (when you're prepping meals for example) and not leaping up at them.

 

4) do general obedience (again all outlined in the training levels mentioned in item 2)

 

Between good management & good training, you'll be close to 100% there. Remember to set up the dog and the environment for success.

 

BTW, one of my dogs is a malamute X. Malamutes will eat anything & everything. They don't think it's counter surfing. They think it's a buffet. :D

 

I also foster dogs for a rescue which pulls dogs out of very harsh conditions & many are used to scrounging & have spent their entire lives 'hunting' for food. These guys also don't understand counters or tables or sometimes, being inside, as they were outside dogs. So yeah, btdt with teaching them house manners, like 'Um, no, you cannot help yourself to everything on the dining room table!'

 

If you're not philosophically opposed to an aversive, you can booby trap with a tower of pop cans which will make a loud noise when they fall. Adding about 10 pennies per pop can really helps with the racket. You have to know the dog well - with some dogs it might cause such panic that they'll run & hurt themselves, or it might cause a fear of ever going into the kitchen again (I have an open floor plan that would be a nightmare in my house!)

 

Other dogs could really care less about the noise & won't be affected by this. Which would leave you pondering how far down the aversive road you're willing to go & how much pain are you willing to inflict on a dog to solve a problem which YOU can solve by managing the space &/or training a calm crate behaviour......

[hornblower]

habit it's REALLY hard to break, because you can punish all day long, but if every so often they get pulled pork, they are going to keep trying ;)

 

Ayup. This is exactly how casinos make money.

 

We can also use this in training; intermittent and random reinforcement schedules can really ramp up training results for exactly this reason. No reward, no reward, no reward, no reward, HUGE jackpot! Wow, that was great! I'll keep playing!

Edited June 15, 2010 by hornblower
an apostrophe was endangering a kitten

[Jann in TX]

Our kitchen placement (by purpose) was designed so that the dogs would be able to stay out of the kitchen. Our first house had a 'central' open-kitchen design (but it had defined doorways)... our current house has a modified 'galley' with computer room on one end and dining area on the other.... In both designs the rest of the house was accessible WITHOUT going into the kitchen and the dogs are/were NOT allowed to 'pass through'.

 

Our dogs have always been HUGE. Our current ones are 2 of the smallest ones we have-- one is 100 pounds and the other around 70.

 

Our newest dog (another white German shepherd) has been with us about 4 weeks... it took her about 2 weeks to really catch on that we did not want her in the kitchen. She is 2-3 years old and was a 'rescue' dog. Food is BIG to her since she was found starving--but she learned and we only had to use a 'matter of fact' firm voice with her on a few occasions... and a few reminders... she now looks through the kitchen to see me at the computer and walks around 'the long way'!!

 

We have had our other dog (white German shepherd) since he was a pup. He was just never allowed to go into the kitchen. The first few times we left him alone in the house (we had other dogs at the time) we blocked off the kitchen with a security gate to 'remind' him... we only had to use that for a few months.

[homeschoolally]

Agree with all the previous ideas--this is the only one I haven't seen listed already---

Never tried it, just read about it--apply a thin coat of cooking oil to the edges of the counters so when paws go up, they slip right off.

:001_smile:

[Hoggirl]

that is a rescue dog. She can just about reach all the way to the BACK of my counters. She broke one of my glass cake plates by pulling it off the counter as she got my cake! Thankfully, she didn't cut herself. I would say that *I* am the one who is now trained, and I take full responsibility if I am foolish enough to leave food out on the counters. I cool my baked goods on racks on top of my refrigerator!

 

While I realize I should be the one in charge, it was definitely easier to train myself than to train her. AND, my counters stay incredibly clean and tidy to boot.

[FriedClams]

Get an air horn. Then its not you yelling - it like the voice of God to a dog. I would train frequently in small time bites.

[Alexandra]

I am cracking up at the thought of aaaaallll the uses that one could find for an airhorn.

[Cindyg]

Love the air horn idea! You can get them wherever you buy supplies for boats.

[LauraGB]

How old is he? I mean, how long has this been a habit for him?

 

When our lab/hound mix does this (she's notorious for this :glare:), I clap really loud and yell "Oy!" It used to be that she would just look at me like I was nuts and then continue gobbling up whatever she could. But now, her ears go down and her eyes get big, she drops to the floor and...get this...she pretends to be looking really hard at the wall or the ceiling, or anywhere other than the counter :lol::lol::lol:. It's hilarious, and she hasn't done it nearly as often. In fact, today, I left a platter of chopped veggies (carrots and green beans, which are among her favorites) and fruit covered with a cloth while I left the house for about a half hour, and she didn't even touch them (she did, however, steal my slipper :glare:).

 

Just pick a method, make sure the dog understands your meaning, and stick with it...for a while. Just be stern and repetitive with your reprimand. Hopefully, eventually he will catch on.

[mom4him]

I'm laughing because my Dane used to do this :) I know everyone says not to yell, but my Dane hates be in trouble :) So we would give a stern yell and eventually he stopped.

:iagree:YUP! Our labradoodles where champs at getting the meat off the counter that I had there thawing. I rolled up a newspaper, taped it securely and had it handy. I then made a NO DOG IN THE KITCHEN rule and every time they started into the kitchen I picked up the new paper, whacked it on the counter so it made a loud noise and scolded them ferociously.

I haven't lost anything off the counter since I started this. Once in a while one of them will stick their nose around the corner but I just speak to them firmly and they move the other way.