begging and stealing food

im have big problems with my 8 month old staffy (roxy) we cant eat a meal in peace. she keeps trying to take the food off are plates and my girlfreind kept pushing roxy away and she snaped at her its awful my girl freind wants to get rid of her but i really dont but i really dont know what to do. everytime i lock her out while we are eating she will pee in the hall any body any ideas??

Do you eat at a table or while watching tv etc if your food is high up where the dog can't see it it won't be able to beg etc. A firm no as well may help don't push her away

we would sit of the sofa while eating. no matter how many times we say no she jumps on beside us trying to get some of whatever we are eating think maybe one of those stairgates to lock her out but would prefer not to.

What we do with Ralph is have an ‘imaginary’ line that he’s not allowed to cross. This is past the sofa. If he stays the other side of it, he gets a treat (his own treats though – nothing off our plates). I saw the technique on that it’s me or the dog. You need to work on his ‘sit and stay’ first though. Get him to sit and stay. I’m no expert, but this works for us?

Be interested to see what the others say.

I also use this when I’m cooking and he’s trying to get in the kitchen. He has to stay just outside the door, else he’ll be under my feet when I’m at the oven etc.

I would teach her to stay on a dog mat while you are eating. Pixee does that, and we have no trouble from her, she knows that she will soon get her scraps when we finish. Always do save some for her. Pushing and shouting is a no no. A firm down, show her where she is to wait will soon pay off. As she is a puppy, someone else may have better ideas to help you. We mainly eat in the kitchen, she has a mat in there for safety reasons so she does not get under my feed when I am getting anything out the oven etc, sometimes we will eat in the lounge, there is another mat in there for her. Please remember she is only a puppy and needs training to get there.

Staffy lover wrote:I would teach her to stay on a dog mat while you are eating. Pixee does that, and we have no trouble from her, she knows that she will soon get her scraps when we finish. Always do save some for her. Pushing and shouting is a no no. A firm down, show her where she is to wait will soon pay off. As she is a puppy, someone else may have better ideas to help you. We mainly eat in the kitchen, she has a mat in there for safety reasons so she does not get under my feed when I am getting anything out the oven etc, sometimes we will eat in the lounge, there is another mat in there for her. Please remember she is only a puppy and needs training to get there.

I like the mat idea rather than what I do with Ralph...

Jellytot wrote:

Staffy lover wrote:I would teach her to stay on a dog mat while you are eating. Pixee does that, and we have no trouble from her, she knows that she will soon get her scraps when we finish. Always do save some for her. Pushing and shouting is a no no. A firm down, show her where she is to wait will soon pay off. As she is a puppy, someone else may have better ideas to help you. We mainly eat in the kitchen, she has a mat in there for safety reasons so she does not get under my feed when I am getting anything out the oven etc, sometimes we will eat in the lounge, there is another mat in there for her. Please remember she is only a puppy and needs training to get there.

I like the mat idea rather than what I do with Ralph...

thank you, it means she can be comfortable too

i know that i humanize my dogs, but they are on a one strike system. mine are about 4 months old.
I say "NO" and push them away from the table using a body block. when they are out of the eating are, but can still see, i tell them stay. Of course they are puppies, so if they get up i give them an "uh ah" and if they come back in, they go to their crate. It's harder on the couch if the couch is an eating area as well as an established cuddle or play area.

but definitely go for the body block instead of the push away

ontherun wrote:im have big problems with my 8 month old staffy (roxy) we cant eat a meal in peace. she keeps trying to take the food off are plates and my girlfreind kept pushing roxy away and she snaped at her its awful my girl freind wants to get rid of her but i really dont but i really dont know what to do. everytime i lock her out while we are eating she will pee in the hall any body any ideas??

Does Roxy have her dinner before or after you ??

We feed Rocky before we have our dinner, he then just goes off for a snooze while we are eating ours.

Does Roxy have some toys to play with while you are eating, a stag bar would be great for this.

Tommy is a little terror at meal times when sometimes on a Sunday we like to sit on the floor in the front room with trays and watch TV whilst we eat but he wouldn't settle so we use a safety gate to keep him out , he's fine just cries. Only problem is that Tilly was Bullet proof for begging and now we have to keep her out as well so we don't look like we favour one and not the other. Tilly just goes up and lies on the bed though.

Now Tommy is starting toi master his training I might give the mat or line a thought though , that way they can both be with us which is our preference. They always get a few scraps at the end anyway even if its just a couple of taties and some gravy to spice up the kibble

Loki will just sit there staring at you if you'd let him so we send him to his cage and completely ignore him if anyone's eating in the same room as him. If you don't have a cage, get a bed or something comfy for him to lie on while in the living room so he's still in the room, but has to stay on his bed. Take a while for him to get the hang of staying there though, so something to work on.

http://www.webbsdirect.co.uk/richecopains_-eskimo-beige-pet-bed-2-sizes-available-prodric010/

This is what Pixees mats are. I like to keep her bed upstairs for going to sleep in, although at the moment because of rest she has to have, the bed is in my office, so she can have her morning sleep instead of on our bed as she likes to or in the conney. Only way I can keep an eye on her. I have four of those mats.

Blimey threads like this remind me how unbelievably lucky we were when Fiver chose to come home with us from the rescue centre. Five won't actually start to eat his own food in his dish until we tell him it's OK to do so. Until we say get it Fiver he just sits there looking at it

He will stare at you if you're eating but only if it's something in your hand, if you're eating off a plate he actually turns away and lies down until you've finished. This dog was so well trained by his previous owner he's an absolute diamond doggie

I agree about not pushing Staffies away, they just see it as a challenging game, a firm no is far better. I'd never allow a dog to get on the furniture anyway and Fiver has never tried to get on the chairs or couches. I don't mind if he climbs on me with his front legs but he's not allowed onto the furniture to sit. We never feed him at the table either, our food is ours until it goes into his dish once we've finished, and again he even then won't touch it until told. We have the best behaved dog we could ever want purely by the grace of the powers in the heavens that sent us to him LOL

Our behaviourist recommended we watch this video (it's a bit long winded but has paid dividends and is well worth watching). Sophie now sits on her mat whilst we eat our tea (usually off trays on our lap). She has advised we can use the same methods in all sorts of situations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wesm2OpE_2c&feature=plcp

Has she EVER been given food at the table? Even just once?

The key here is total consistency.

I put Sausage into a sit if she gets within a metre of where I'm eating - made very little sense to her for the first fortnight but she has now learned that sitting at human food time will bring her a reward a few minutes later.

Of course, for the first day, she'd sit, then immediately close ground, then be made to sit again - I resolved it by eating my meals standing, while looking directly at the tv - ie not interacting with her at all.

This took all of about two meals before she got the hint that foster dad was zoned out from her attentions.

I now eat and she doesn't come near - had guests on Friday night and we ate while she lay on the sofa, not bothered.

The instant I moved the plates to the kitchen after eating, she came and danced round her food bowl - waiting until the humans eat is now a conditioned response.

Total consistency is absolutely key.