Our puppy just turned 6 months old. He is doing so well in training and has learned so much. One thing however I run a daycare in my home. Whenever the kids are eating he will sneak in a jump up on one of their chairs and very quickly snatch something off of their plate. He does not do this when we eat, he always sits so patiently away from table. I have taught him to go to his spot which is not too far from the table and he does pretty well as long as my attention is fully on him. He knows stay but still working on duration. I treat him when he is staying and doing well but when I have 6 little kids who are in constant need of something it's really hard to focus fully on keeping Oakley in his spot. I have put him on a leash to keep him there which works and I have also put him in his crate but I just feel like he wont ever learn. Am I doing the right thing? Is it ok to keep him in his crate during this time? Will he ever learn not to do this? I have one child who is fearful of him jumping up on her chair so I don't want to further scare her either. Any advise would be greatly appreciated thank you
Hey I can empathise with how you feel,my pup does this and he's 5months, but he only targets my little one who's 3years so maybe same sort of age you are looking after. So now when my one is eating Marley goes into the kitchen behind safety gate (he does have crate but we use it for nap times, night etc). I made a post "snatching" on here and there was some great advice regarding whether he would learn if I just put him separate etc, I think it's a work in progress I'm hoping if I prevent it from happening may be one day Marley will eventually understand lol let's hope. Good luck xx
Great thank you I will look for that post. Yes that is the age of my daycare kiddos. Unfortunately the way our kitchen is set up I can't put a gate there that's why I were using either the crate or the leash tied where he can't get to the table. thank you
Ahh ok, hard isn't it. I hope you manage to think of something. Someone also suggested eat on cue type training so maybe that could help. It's in the post anyway but hope it all works for you x
Sounds like you are busy with the daycare and have your hands full. My suggestion would be to crate him with a frozen Kong while you are feeding the children since you can't gate him out of the kitchen. He can come right back out when you've finished the children's feeding. I prefer crating to a secured leash. (I do use tethering when necessary but the puppy is tethered to me and not to a door etc.)
Hi aisling labs, sorry to jump on post again but what do you suggest in the kong that would be safe for a pup to have. I've been putting treats init but their out in 5 mins
Hey @Marley ❤ Didn't want to jump in but saw your question. I'm sure @Aisling Labs will have great suggestions. Two things our puppy is obsessed with in kongs are a smear of peanut butter or a quarter/half a banana mashed up!
Ahh that's great thank you. I didn't realise a little bit of banana would be ok. I'll try that with him
You can also moisten some kibble with mashed banana or peanut butter (one that doesnt contain any artificial sweeteners) and stuff that in. Once your pup has the hang of that you can soak the kibble in water andfreeze it to make it more difficult.
I use portions of Roamin's daily ration of kibble; I wet the food and then put the Kong in the freezer. It takes them longer to get the food out when it is frozen AND it helps with their teething pain as well. Tires them out a bit too! You can put peanut butter at the large opening and freeze that as well, but I rarely do that unless we are leaving the house for a time. We have the Black Kong which is designed for the strongest chewers....
The problem with giving him a kong is that my daycare kids are in the kitchen 3 different times, breakfasst, lunch, snack, therefore that is a lot of kongs, not to mention the time of day we give him his kong is in the afternoon when my husband and I are both working and he has to remain in his crate from aprox. 3-5ish. Today I had less daycare kids and I kept him away from the table and had him focus on me, he did very well, however my daycare kids being that they are young 3-5 yrs stop, walk slow because they are always focusing on what everyone else is doing, or waving their arms which catches Oakleys attention, it's frustrating to say the least, anyways he jumped up onto the chair of one of them and I just told him off very frimly and said no, I know they say to save no for emergencies but it seemed to work, he did not attempt anymore jumps and laid down on his spot the rug. I don't know it's just frustrating. On accident, mostly when Oakley is outside and my son or husband will let him in not realizing the kids are walking to a meal and Oakley will jump on them. He is getting better with not jumping on guests but I hope that stops soon.
I can't imagine having even one kid and a 6 month old puppy, let alone 6x 3-5 year old kids and a 6 month old puppy. In general and leaving aside number of kids and puppy: Puppy should not have access to areas where they can snatch human food. They should be either in crate at these times or stair-gated out of the area where kids and food are. It's about physical prevention, especially since little kids can't act to prevent a dog just taking food off them. What I'm going to say now is not going to be at all helpful (probably) but might be helpful to someone else reading this and who is tempted to bite off more than they can chew... Sometimes as a trainer/behaviourist, I get things like "Help - I have 5 intact males from the same litter which I decided to keep and they are fighting amongst themselves". Or "What should I do, I have to leave for work from 5.30am and I don't get home until midnight and I have a 10 week old puppy".... Or "Help - I have a Weimaraner and I live in an 9th floor apartment building in the middle of a city and I can't exercise her off leash anywhere". I'm exaggerating some of these, but you get the point. And when I make the only suggestions I can think of, it's the 'Yer but, not but, yer but, no but' comeback - (you will only get that if you know Little Britain!) - nothing I suggest is possible because there's something about the situation which makes whatever I suggest, impossible. Like - can you arrange for a daycare for your dog left alone 8 hours a day? No, I can't afford that. No, I can't drive that far before work in the mornings. Or - can you take up jogging to exercise your city-bound Weimaraner? No, I hate running. No, I have an artificial knee. It's not that these are excuses - some probably are excuses, but many are extremely valid reasons for why someone simply can't do what I'm suggesting. The dog doesn't care whether it's an excuse or a valid circumstance though - the effect on them is the same. I call these 'biting off more than you can chew' cases, and they really are some of the hardest. Behaviourists and trainers are not magicians. If you stack the odds against you, you will lose. And who really loses in those impossible predicaments, is the dog. There is a point where it is not humanly possible to do it all optimally and be one single person. At 6 months, he is just starting to grow now - and soon you will have a large and powerful adolescent dog doing these things - jumping at kids, nicking food.... And, I don't know much about kids and daycare and animals in the house - or legal requirements wherever you live - but when dogs and (other people's) kids and food are combined, many things can get misreported by kids to parents - and many misunderstandings can occur about what actually happened between dog and kids. And then there's hygiene... It would be a really good idea to make an appointment with a reputable force-free behaviourist who can take a look at your routine, your house layout, your dog's life and come up with some suggestions to implement which see prevention put in place properly and which also ensure that everyone's needs get met - dog's and kids' and yours.
There is really no problem with you giving the puppy five Kongs each day at the times you need him to be content. All you need to do is use portions of his DAILY ration of Kibble. Roamin get three each day each filled with about 1/3 cup of his daily ration. If your boy is fed less than that would allow, then you can use other things to stuff that Kong with. The only thing to worry about is given him more than he should be getting in Kcals per day. Nor is it "too much" crating time. How long does the feeding of the humans last each time? 15 minutes? 30 minutes? Then puppy is in for 30 minutes three times each day - still only 1.5 hours of his 10 to 12 hour day so there is still plenty of time for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening for scheduled crating for naps or for that 3 - 5 time frame you and your husband need to get work accomplished. We often apply human emotion to our dogs that they simply don't have and then feel "guilty" for crating the puppy. As long as it is not for hours at a time and NOT because you are angry and just simply can't stand the thought of dealing with the puppy, then it is not causing them to have hurt feelings....it is simply their schedule for the day.
