Hi I have a three month old labrador puppy. Whenever I am in the kitchen he invariably follows me and whenever I have to open the fridge door he pokes his nose in. Yesterday he licked up a cake which was there in the bottom row of the fridge. How to stop the puppy from poking his nose inside the fridge?
Hi @satyajit , does your puppy know sit yet? When my puppy was small if she wanted to get involved like with what I was doing I would just ask her to sit, once she knew it, and then reward her for waiting. What is your puppy called?
I taught my young dog to stay on a mat when I was in the kitchen which really helped. Your pup is very small and will learn eventually that licking things in the fridge is NOT good. Just now, you probably need to move him out the way to access your fridge, perhaps distract him with a small treat, or maybe make sure he is behind a baby gate, or in his crate when you are in the kitchen.
We use a combination of a marked barrier and a mat for her to lay on. We used the black tape on the floor with our cats, and it worked really well. It gives us a way to ask her to step out of the "busiest" part of the kitchen and near the fridge but without making her go out of the kitchen, which she doesn't like. And then we put a blanket on the floor so she can lay on that while we are busy in the kitchen. I have attached some photos. We use C & T to put OUT on cue.
I train my lot not to poke their nose where it's not wanted (fridge, dishwasher) in a similar way to how I train them not to push through an opening door. They either have to sit on or behind a barrier (so on a bed, outside the kitchen door etc) and I reward them for staying there, or I use a technique of closing the door every time they try to get in/through it. So, start to open it, if the dog puts his nose towards it, close it again. They start to learn that moving towards the door actually denies them access to the thing they want. Combined with rewarding for not approaching the door, this is a powerful technique.
