My 14 week old puppy has started to jump up and try to grab stuff on the table and on kitchen counters. How can I correct this? She also takes things off the coffee table since it is at a more reasonable height. How can I train her not to do this? She tries stealing food that the kids are eating. If an adult is sitting at the table having dinner she will try to jump up and see what you are eating, or even take a bite! I'd like to correct this sooner rather than later. What are some things I can do?
Re: Puppy jumping up on tables/counters I would be interested in hearing the replies to this post Rolo does this too.
Re: Puppy jumping up on tables/counters I have Gypsy - a Guide Dog puppy (6 months old). They are not even allowed to look at us when eating, they have to lie down under the table. Of course, her owner will have her in cafes and restaurants etc and they shouldn't have their dog sitting drooling at them or other people - they also won't be able to see the dog, so they must be reliable round all food. The way we do this is to never give them any human food. Our food is not seen as accessible to them at all, ever. She has dog food and dog treats - and that's it. It makes training harder - I used all sorts of tasty treats when training Tatze - but it's possible all the same. It has worked with Gypsy, she never asks or scavenges at all. Other, non-food, items she might pinch are kept out of reach completely - but she has plenty of her own things. If she is going towards a slipper or such we say a firm 'no'. At puppy class today we started to learn 'leave it' as lots of places have food on the floor so she has to learn to leave that too - but those lessons have only just started.
Re: Puppy jumping up on tables/counters I dont feed her people food. Well I did have to switch to chicken and rice for a few days for diarrhea. So she has had that. And kids do drop stuff. I guess she has had people food, but I'm not handing her things left and right. I dont want her to have to live like a guide dog and not look at us while eating, I just dont want her jumping up and stealing things, or grabbing right out of my 6 year olds hands! We've been telling her NO or DOWN and pulling her off the counter or the table.
Re: Puppy jumping up on tables/counters I think the challenge with counter surfing is that unless you restrict their access with a crate or similar you're not always there to stop them. Our spaniel puppy is giving counter surfing a good go at the moment and all I've managed to do is to crate him when we're not around and remember not to leave stuff out in the hopes that he doesn't get anything and gives up. He also stays in the kitchen behind a baby gate while my toddler is eating. When we eat he goes on his mat and is well rewarded with kibble for staying there. I also give him my new favourite toy: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kong-KD2-Dental-Stick-Medium/dp/B0002DHO0O/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_img_4 with a smear of peanut butter on the grooves. If you find anything that works let me know !!!! ;D
Re: Puppy jumping up on tables/counters We eat tea at the same time as Harley. When she has finished hers, we trained her to go and lie on her bed until we finish. She now usually falls asleep as soon as she gets on her bed. Her bed is in the front room where we usually eat so she can see us. We started by giving her treats when she got on her bed, but gave phased that out now. As for the work tops, be consistent with the 'down' and move things out of reach
Re: Puppy jumping up on tables/counters I found Bailey on the table at that age....... No food just sitting! He constantly counter surfs! Gets down when told... No treat and will stop mid flow if I can catch him in time, I put it on the forum and I think the consensus was they grow out if it one hopes
Re: Puppy jumping up on tables/counters Consistent nos have stopped Elsie with the coffee table, she isn't so good with the worktop in the kitchen mainly my fault for giving her bits and pieces when I am cooking. One thing I will warn though is you may break all these behaviours and have many years of peace but when they get old if they get dementia it may all come back, our late Mollie was so determined to sit on the coffee table we had to remove it the last year of her life for her own safety.
Re: Puppy jumping up on tables/counters Do not feed your food, from table or kitchen work tops. Remove the dog from the room at meal times use the crate, with a bit of kibble. eventually they will learn to go in the crate at your meal time. Teach the dog to sit and leave a piece of kibble on floor in front of her, then reward her for leaving it. She must not take it without you saying OK or some command. In fact I take the piece of kibble away from the floor and give another one. Unless you have taught 'No and Down' she will not understand the command? so you can say it all you want. The Down command in our house is in fact 'Lie down', which is the extension of the sit and then down, add the stay at the end and teach your dog to down stay. All basic commands that can be taught with a bit of kibble and time, well worth the time.
Help this is my biggest complaint!!! My 4 mo has never ever had people food but constantly gets up on cekitchen counters and kitchen table. I don't know what to do! Squirt bottle, low voice " off" grab by scruff. Nothing helps and I'm so over it
This method works really, really well: I've been using it with Bessie. I make sure there is never anything she can get left out. That can be difficult as my 16yo autistic son likes to pace back and forth while eating a snack on the kitchen island, but I will generally supervise her during that time. I have also clicked/rewarded her for laying in a down on a rug outside the kitchen while I'm in there making/eating food. This falls apart when other people are over, so far (obviously I need to extend the training and I'm too distracted by my guests), but it works when it's just me at home. I don't use a command; I just caught her laying there once and clicked and treated for it and it stuck. I generally do really good treats, like hot dog or pieces of chicken, for this behavior (something that is as high value as what she's going after). I would use the crate if I can't supervise, but that has been problematic for us as she cries/whines in there or in her exercise pen, so I can't reliably use that without creating more of a negative association with her crate. As @Indy suggests, we have also worked on leave it and "it's your choice" (search on youtube for examples) game - she doesn't get the treat in my hand until she backs away from it. This is helping impulse control a lot. There is still a lot of "off" and knocking her down off the counters, I admit - one of the few times I'm not 100% positive in my interactions with her. But it doesn't seem to do much good, so not sure why I continue, ha.
Is it such a big deal? Really? If my dogs approach humans while eating and I don't want them to do so, I just tell them to go to their mats - although both are allowed to beg for OH's food. He encourages this, and Charlie lies on his mat by OH's chair, and Betsy lies in her crate nearby (because that's where OH fed her at first when he was eating). So what's the big deal? If a human is happy to feed them, fine. If not, I tell them to go on their mats. Both my dogs counter surf. I don't bother stopping them. My older dog does it very politely. If I'm chopping up his treats, he'll put his paws up on the counter and supervise. He won't grab the treats. He just wants to observe....they don't do it while I'm chopping up onions, neither of them like onions. If I'm chopping up beef, I tell them to go to their mats..... My new puppy is the queen of counter surfing. I just make sure everything is pushed to the back. She hasn't been rewarded so far...doesn't stop her. So what? If I want her to quit, I tell her to go lie on her mat. And just wipe the edges down with an anti-bac wipe before I prepare food. I just can't be bothered to have a fight over it.... So I have counter surfing dogs, and we are all happy.
OH is desperately bothered by counter surfing, so I've made a particular effort over the past week to reward for 4 paws on the floor. I don't expect to eradicate it completely, but if I can curb it then great. I've noticed a massive improvement - this morning she was great! And I couldn't reward her with anything more than a pat because she was going in for surgery that morning
Hey, thank you for the video, that was really interesting. Not having my Lab puppy yet, I have to admit this is a trait that I've never dealt with my other dogs and view with a bit of trepidation. One of the service dog cert tasks is that the dog is left in a room for several minutes ALONE with lots of foods on a coffee table. If the dog touches any of the food, he fails that task. Brogan passed the test with flying colors because he really didn't think that unless I placed food in his mouth (or in his bowl) he could have it. The same for food on the floor in a restaurant, in the street or left on a plate on the floor. I didn't really teach him this, I think I just got lucky, so have been thinking how I can teach a new puppy as Labs seem much more food-driven than any of my dogs in the past. The only downside to having a dog who never touches food unless you put it directly in his mouth? I had friends who would toss small biscuits or popcorn at Brogan expecting him to catch it (as their dogs did) and it would bounce off his face, land on the floor and he would then stare at it forlornly because he didn't eat food off the floor. It was rather sad to witness! But it would always end with me scooping up the treat and handing it to Brogan, so alls well that ends well.
@cubby Neither Molly nor my last dog ( chocolate lab) would take food from the coffee table by the time they were about 18months, but it did take that long for me to be absolutely confident. With previous dogs I've put them out of the room behind a stair gate while we were eating, but given them something like a kong or chew to keep them occupied. For some reason we didn't do this with Molly, but allowed her to lie down near the table, but again with something to chew. I think never feeding them from the table, if you don't want them to scrounge, and distracting with something nice of their own are my strategies.
My OH gets seriously annoyed with the counter surfing as well. It doesn't bother me too much - but then again I'm better at not leaving things in reach of little paws. The other day I bought Stanley some milk biscuits and left them on the counter right at the back out of reach - he'd obviously had a little look on the counter to see if there was anything interesting and saw the box. I came into the kitchen to find Stanley on his tippie toes straining to reach back as far as possible to get the biscuits, his little paw waving about frantically - how are you supposed to be mad at that?! Naughty? Probably. Cute? Most definitely!
Personally, yes, it's a behavior I'd like to stop. Particularly because of my son's eating habits as well as the fact that I go to friends' houses for dinner often and don't want her continuing it there, or stealing food left out during parties, etc. And I'd like her eventually to be like my older dog, where I can leave bread or leftovers out for a little while and he doesn't bother them. (He never counter surfed as a puppy, though. Thoroughly uninterested in food, completely un-lab-like in that respect!) But that is a very good perspective @JulieT ! Don't fight it if it doesn't bother you, for sure! I admit this may or may not be an appropriate application of the Premack principle, but when she's laying on her mat in a down, I do sometimes treat her with the very food she was counter surfing for (it's often chicken, for my son). It does seem to work, though!
