How do you get puppy to stop taking food from table?

[DanielReed]

Our Australian Shepherd is about 4 months old now. We have 4 young kids so unfortunately she has had the pleasure of tasting people food at a much too young age. Now during meals she is trying to get their plates from the table and is taking fallen food off their laps. Any tips on how to go about stopping this behavior? We try “down” and “leave it” but her desire for this food seems to make her a bit crazy.

[ManidaMorrell]

Another junior member here, I've had the same sort of problem but my nieces and nephew don't live with us so it's only been once and a few attempts with us. My niece was sitting on a chair out back with food on the chair next to her and my 3mth pup (border collie) just came up and started chowing down. She wasn't big enough to push him away. Twice he's jumped onto the table via the chairs, once to see out the window to find me the other I can't remember. I'm looking forward to more "lovely" adolescent behaviour in the future... not.

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hello Daniel Reed,

Welcome to the forum!

 

An article about begging at the table can be found here:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/begging/

 

"Leave it" needs to be taught very solidly before putting the dog into the position of listening despite food raining from the table. If told too many times without success it leads to learned irrevance which means your verbal cue has lost its potency. Your puppy may not be ready for this level of self control and if he's constantly by the table fiding tidbits of food, you'll have to repeat over and over and this again leads only to problems. "Leave it" works better for the occasional mishap, such as your dog walking by the counter as you are cooking food, and you accidentally drop something.

 

To tackle eating from the table behaviors, it's fundamental to prevent mishaps such as having the dog eat pieces of dropped food. What this does is reinforce the behavior of searching for food under the table and will therefore cause rehearsal of the problem behavior. This means you'll soon have a dog stuck to the table like glue! To prevent any of these mishaps, (which are almost inevitable with four young kids) it's important to firstly manage the situation.

 

What this means is to prevent the dog from accessing the table during meals and cleaning the floor before the dog is allowed again in the area. You can keep your dog in a crate with a stuffed Kong for now and then as the puppy matures (he's too young now to hold a very long stay), you can make it your goal to train your dog to lie on a mat (or go to your place) during meal times. It helps at first to help the dog succed by allowing him to work on a Kong or a safe long-lasting bone. You can find how to train your dog to lie on a mat here:

 

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/video-archive/train-dog-go-to-mat/

 

Once you train a good down stay at a distance from the table during meals, you can then reward your dog with a cookie for keeping it until the end. You may have to remind your dog every now and then to maintain the position. My two Rotties were taught this from a young age and they always looked forward to doing their long down stays during meal-time in anticipation for their final reward. The behavor has become so ingrained that just a few months later, upon seeing us brining the dishes to the table, they didn't need to be told to go lie down and did it automatically.

Edited May 20, 2018 by Adrienne Farricelli