Beau is almost seven months old now. He is doing very well in his obedience class but we are definitely having a problem with his stealing things around the house. Beau loves to grab something of ours and trot away with it. We keep all of our bedroom and bathroom doors closed and most things out of his reach, but, being only human, we occasionally forget to protect our glasses, the tv remote or, his all time favorite, a Kleenex. I know we are supposed to ignore the behavior and not run after him which turns it into a game but he often will grab something that is precious or potentially dangerous. Beau has gotten so tall now that he can reach so many more things. And when he has one of these treasures, he totally ignores all of his learned commands. Has anyone had this problem and better yet......a helpful course of action? Thank you
Oh there are lots of posts about stealing on the forum, and the general consensus is always "put things away/out of reach". I also have a tissue-eater. If I leave a tissue in reach then it gets eaten. If we're on a walk and she spots a tissue in the grass and I'm not quick enough to distract her then she'll lunge for it. Blerg, other people's manky tissues
It's quite common in our house to find a ball where there was once a shoe, then a shoe next to the toilet roll and a snow storm of ripped up tissue all over the bedroom! Homer will pick up my jumper as I put clothes out to get dressed so then run around the house in my underwear to get my clothes back. And go to work with Labrador slobber all over my clothes.
You will get into a routine of having glasses/remote etc out of his way. They smell of you and are top prizes, so I wouldn't bother training him to leave them alone. Train him to give stuff back immediately and train yourself to leave your preceios stuff out of the way. Here is a good article - http://www.thelabradorsite.com/labrador-behaviour/#stealing My friend learned this the hard way when her Lab destroyed her new iPad ...
You do get into the habit of putting things out of reach, and he may grow out of it to some extent. But, alongside this, you can start to work on a really reliable "give" cue. If he already knows this with less desirable things, great, but if he's not doing it with his "loot", then it just means you've not proofed it enough, so you need to start doing training sessions with more and more desirable things; every time you up the desirability of the object, you go back to the start of the training process again. If you put enough time and effort into this, as well as mixing up where you do it (always remembering, when you change one thing, make the rest easier), and giving him high value rewards along the way, you'll end up with a dog that can give you the "bad" stuff. A good tactic is to practice this with stuff that you don't mind him having, so that he gives it to you, you reward him, but then you give it straight back to him. If he learns that giving you stuff means he gets a treat and still gets to keep the thing he had, then he's more likely to give you anything - and it matters less when you actually need to take it away from him.
You can definitely train a puppy to head towards you with anything they nick - my youngest does this. With most stuff she picks up (stones, sticks, pine cones etc) treats just appear out of nowhere to rain around her head if she is at my feet with something. When she is busy with the treat, I remove the thing (if it's something I don't want her to chew). On the very rare occasions that it's something dangerous or expensive, I 'spend' the reinforcement I've built up by taking the item right away. Then I try to make sure I don't do that again for a good while. I don't swap for treats, because I want her to retrieve and she has to put something in my hand before she gets the treat - my OH and dog walker swap for treats, it drives me nuts. She'll drop the dummy on a whiff of food, and proofing her hold against food is turning out to be really time consuming! If you are not going to bother with that kind of thing though, it doesn't matter.
Finn did this when he was little. The only problem we have now is when something delicious is thrown away and Finn finds it. He normally would give it back and by giving the Dutch comment to drop it (los). He won't do this when too delicious and gobbles it down into his stomach....when asking nicely to show me what he has got there, I might get it before it will go down his throat into his stomach....
I agree with all of the above, and they do grow out of it to an extent. The only thing Bruce (11 months) is drawn to is socks, but he trots to us with them for a swap. Tatze is still 100% unpredictable - she leaves everything alone most of the time ....
I am fully aware that we've got this wrong it's Homer who still lives a game for attention. Yesterday I picked up my little nieces ducky slipper, a real Homer prize! The only way I was going to get it back intact was with a piece of cheese. My brother, father of a young toddler, questioned if I was reinforcing his behaviour. Yes, yes, I unashamedly am reinforcing his behaviour, but the toddler tears and my guilt when the ducky slipper is shaken to distraction would be unbearable.
Rory galloped round a field trying to kill a pair of minion wellies tonight he did bring the them back. But he could throw them up in the air and catch them at the gallop. Everyone thought it was impressive he could tell. Couldn't be to angry with him as he's been super good today while i was in a&e.
I don't see it as stealing! The Lab is bred to retrieve, it is natural behaviour to pick something up and carry it. So when your pup does this, encourage them to come to you and tell them how clever they are Put valuable things well away!
Hopefully they grow out of it. Cooper is a lot better now, but not perfect. A good leave it helps some, but mostly we don't find out about it until the object is pretty much destroyed. Cooper doesn't take things when we are around, just when we are out of sight and she is bored. Giving them toys such as frozen kongs or rawhides helps keep ours occupied if we aren't watching them.
