looking for suggestions as to what to do with Storm when we eat. My ideal would be for her to go in her crate. What's the best way of achieving this? I have always put her in at mealtimes but the last week or so she is crying and barking very loudly. Not bothered about being in her crate at night or other times just seems to be when we are eating. We have not fed her any human food at all apart from the half slice of toast she stole from the kitchen counter this morning. I hadn't realised that she would climb on the footstool to reach it. Ideally I'd like her to want to go in there with the door open but open to suggestions. She is 14 weeks and on a restricted diet of just Id kibble so can't out her in there with a tasty Kong or anything like that.
Have you tried soaking her kibble and stuffing a kong with that? Otherwise, you're back to the usual - building up the time bit by bit. So, as you eat, click for quiet and feed her kibble as a reward. Build up the time slowly and do it on a variable schedule so you're not always just making it more difficult. Finish off with a jackpot - which, considering you're on a kibble only diet will mean just several pieces of kibble, fed one after another (because feeding them together makes it seem like one reward, whereas one after another makes it seem like lots, therefore you get more value for each piece, even though she gets the same amount!). It means your mealtimes will be disrupted a bit in the short term, with you getting up and down every few seconds, but it'll pave the way to settled meal times.
Do your mealtimes coincide with yours? There used to be old advice that you should eat first and feed the dog after. Having been brought up with farm animals and dogs and cats who lived outside or in the barn no one I knew ever did that, feed them first, then go get cleaned up, warm in the house and eat your meal. Just in case you were following that old advice. OUr meals go much more smoothly if the the critters have eaten first.
Stanley stays behind his baby gate in the kitchen and we eat in the living room. At first he'd cry and whine, then he used to just sit staring longingly. Now he's giving up all together and either has a nap or plays with his toys
I found that by taking Xena for a short walk around the block in the early evening, that she'd settle down quicker and we could eat dinner in peace. It means that the humans eat later but my kid is almost 9 so can cope without an early meal. I probably started this around 16 weeks out of sheer frustration, but it has worked! She'll sit on one sofa and just look at us eat. I prefer to eat earlier but having a settled dog in the evening is worth more to me than an early meal.
@JenBainbridge storm used to do this but has started whining this last week. Not sure what has changed. @Xena Dog Princess i think some exercise before tea would help. She is still not allowed out because of the campylobacter but maybe I could tire her out with a training session instead. X
I'd just train the puppy to stay on a mat, and proof that against food. So use food as a distraction to proof a stay on a mat, including a human pretending to eat it. If a puppy is whining and upset at viewing humans eating, I'd take that as a hint to work quite hard at impulse control, frustration tolerance and proofing a lot of behaviours against food.
I'm sure this isn't the best method (those suggestions above sound much more sensible and well thought out ) but we just ate at the dining table and ignored Ella. I don't think it took long for her to just find somewhere to settle and wait for us to be done. Now we often put her in the kitchen (behind the baby gate) when our son is eating as he does have a habit of giving her food from the high chair.
