Rescue Dog discipline

Hi all,

I'm looking for some advise on how to discipline (if that's the right term) our rescue dog.

She's 8 years old and we adopted her in July.
It was not long after we got her we realised she likes to wait for scraps at the dinner table and help herself to things off of the kitchen counter.
To date she's taken 3 tubs of butter, the entire contents of the food recycling bin, any food left in the kitchen counter in reach and 2 chocolate advent calendars. She takes food off of my childrens plate if they eat at their small table and walk away and leave.
She always does it when nobody is watching.

Now I don't keep an untidy kitchen and after the first tub of margarine incident we make sure everything is out of her reach or put away but sometimes on a busy school morning etc things have been left out and the above things have been taken.
We were surprised by the advent calendars as she took them off a shelf in my sons bedroom although they were on a low shelf (so my son could reach it). Calendar number 3 is now on a high shelf.
Today she took the boxes of chocolates. I'd got back from shopping unpacked the bags left the boxes on the side (pushed back not at the edge) and rushed out to pick my children up from school. I was gone about half an hour. In that time she'd taken them off the side into the front room and ripped them open and ate most if the chocolates, probably would of eaten them all if we hadn't of disturbed her!
Now I'm not sure really what to do or how best to deal with this habit if hers.
She has 2 meals a day of James wellbeloved. 125 grams in the morning and 225 in the evening and a dental chew. She has the odd treat occasionally as another thing we learnt is that she has a sensitive stomach so we have to careful what give her.
When she's taken something I tell her off in a stern deep voice, I point to what ever it is she's taken and I say 'no, that's naughty, you naughty girl, go to your bed'
And she lowers her ears looks very sheepish and goes to her bed.
I guess I'm used to the naughty step routine with my children so I feel I maybe going about it the completely wrong way.
If anyone could offer any advise as to how I can try and stop her from doing this or the correct way for telling her off I would be extremely grateful.
Thank you.

Hello Well done for rescuing, I'll apologize in advance for a long post, just want to cover every aspect that you're mentioned. You say she was a rescue, do you know if she was straying before you took her on or from a home?

Either way; dogs are opportunists, it's so easy to put human emotions and behaviours onto animals, but she doesn't know that she's doing wrong by taking food.. she cannot differentiate between human and dog food.. all she knows is that it's there, it's in reach and it smells like it might taste good! Stealing food is a very self rewarding behaviour that at 8 years old she's probably been doing for some time, and as long as she knows she's going to get something good out of it she's going to continue doing it. When you point at food, she's not going to have any idea what you're trying to get across, just that she's being told off for some reason or another.. you generally have milliseconds to correct a behaviour before the dog has moved on!

So, basically. Unless you catch her in the act of stealing food, don't discipline her. Discipline yourself not to leave food within reach   if you do catch her in the act, a stern NO will suffice, no need for shouting, and then ignore for 5-10 minutes. Ignoring a dog, especially a dog as affectionate as the staff is probably one of the worst things in the entire world that you can do to them and they won't enjoy it! Really though, it's a natural behaviour in dogs that needs to be managed more than corrected! Nutrition can sometimes play a role in scavenging, I don't feed dry food but as far as I'm aware JWB is an okay food for her to be on! Could always get her checked over at the vets if you're concerned, but i'd say she probably just likes food! Hope this helps somewhat..

Oh, and if she's stealing food from the children, can she be kept in another room whilst you're all eating seperated by a baby gate? Maybe with a nice kong to keep her occupied?

At 8 years old, Tiffany has a lot of history behind her which you'll never know (well done on adopting her btw!). It may well be that in her past she had to grab food where she could. Having said that, most dogs are greedy little piggies and will not refrain from grabbing any food items they can, no matter how well fed!

I'm surprised that she can reach food items on a kitchen work surface - my Staff can't, thank heavens! Although my previous Dobermanns could, and did   .

Most dogs can't resist temptation, so I'm afraid my answer would be to make sure that temptation is removed out of Tiffany's reach, and preferably from smell and sight.

I would teach a strong leave command so if you see her approaching some food with a view to taking it you can say 'leave' and she know its not to be touched.

Can only echo Rachel's advise about not telling her off unless you catch her in the act as she won't make the association.

The only other thing I would say is not to send her to her bed if she is naughty as that is her safe place where she sleeps so its not for associating with being told off. A firm no and they ignoring her is much better   

Yes, the only thing you can do is keep things well out of her reach. Easier said than done, I know.

Certainly she shouldn't be allowed to steal the children's food - that would be a big no no! I know when my kids were small, if they left their food then they left it - no going back afterwards & once they were old enough they had to take their empties to the work surface by the sink for washing up, therefore taking away any temptation for the dog to help itself.

You need to teach her to 'leave it' , however I have laughed my socks off at what she has done    

I must admit that it made me smile.

When Dempsey was a bit younger (and still energetic) I made myself a sandwich, cut it in four & left it on the work surface while I went to answer the door. I came back no more than 30 seconds to find that one square had completelt disappeared & Dempsey was lying innocently in his crate!

I had a nice big hunk of roasted topside of beef, ready to be made into something delicious for my family of four. Took my eye off it for 2 seconds - down Dobermann's gullet.   

We live and learn - we live and learn .....

You may also consider a crate when you are out. That would at least stop things like the latest incident. Keeping a watchful eye and giving lots of time (years) to get over being rescued (never know what happened). Few years later and my older rescue still has “moments” which we simply refer to her flashbacks. Not sure what brings it on but she seems to forget herself, but after a few minutes is right as rain. It has lessened over the last year but still happens about once per month or so.

A rescue dog is just a dog. An opportunist, a scavenger. The only solution I find that works is to put things out of reach. As other people have said, I wouldnt tell her off either (not unless caught in the act - and even then, if I thought the fault was mine for leaving it there, I may just choose to ignore). The dog has no concept of ownership, but she will have a very fine radar for a tasty morsel. Some people advise being more tidy - which is great if you can manage it. More practically, it's easier to practice selective tidiness - prioritise putting away the stuff that's most in danger of being chewed, gobbled or slurped.

Gosh this makes me realise how lucky I am Oz never pinches food from anywhere, oh has left his advent calendar on a low rabble since no 5 and nit once has Oz even contemplated pinching it

Hi all, thank you so much for your replies.
Tiffany came from a family who handed her into the rescue centre. She was very overweight when they took her in and the rescue centre and foster family worked hard to get her weight down. We continue this and she is now her ideal weight but seems to put it on very easily.
The counter she usually takes from is our island unit. We try really hard to keep it clear. She's definitely opportunistic, if she smells something she'll jump up and have a look if nobody's watching.
She surprised me with the boxes of chocolate today, although I shouldn't be that surprised considering the advent calendar incidents the last couple of weeks.
I guess we'll have to add chocolate to the list if things she's partial too.
I will work on the 'leave' command with her and with regards to her eating from the kids plates I will take her out of the room when they eat. She does like to sit at your feet when you've got food especially when the children are eating.
I guess old habits die hard so they say. Tiffany is a beautifully natured lovely dog and we feel very lucky to have her even if she is a bit greedy

Well done on the resuce. However 8 years of what she has been doing before is hard to change. Now, your last post does explain more, she was overweight, so that points out that she has been a big eater in the past, and if she is just on dry food, its no wonder really. My Pixee is a resuce, and when we brought her home, she was on dry food from the blue cross, but she did get into the bin, and ever had our dinner off the table when we were not looking. We did however catch her in the act, and she got a firm 'No, leave' and told to lie on her mat in the kitchen, (Never her bed) and she was ignored. She never did it again. We did go through a nightmare feeding her, as she refuses to eat dry food, what we found, was Wainwrights trays, which is soft/firm food, not the wet kind, and she loves that. She is also fed our leftovers, something she looks forward to each night. (I tend to save her some of our food ) So I make sure I balance out what I feed her so she does not get overweight. And she is a happy dog. Has the odd choc treat too. Has her own Christmas Advent too, she loves the opening each day. What I taught Pixee when we sat down to eat, was to lie on her mat, in the same room as us, but out of our way. She does that without us telling her now. We are very lucky in that we can n ow leave food lying about, and Pixee wont touch it, so I always reward her with some of that food when I take it away. Try putting some food on the floor and say 'leave'. Then treat her with it. She will soon learn hopefully. I did laugh when I read your post, Staffies are brillant thieves   .

Sounds like her previous family fed from the plate/kitchen counter and had no restrictions on treats. Ledger is rescue but was caged alone and has always had good food discipline in the home but from the start he has had to wait until I give him permission and he passed the sausage challenge at dog club Xmas comp on Sunday (dog sits and a sausage is placed on the floor 6ft away and they had to wait at least 20secs before they could be released to eat the sausage)

Our second dog as a kid tho Pepsi (Heinz 57 size of a small collie) when we first got her from rescue would demolish a bowl of food in seconds before it touched the floor and she was always scavaging once my mum had cooked a chicken ready for tea and had left it in the Pyrex cooking dish on top of the cooker (right at the back) and covered in foil we had been in the front room watching tv and came back through to the kitchen to find the dish and foil in place and no trace of the chicken   

They will always see what they can get away with just a reminder to be über careful with chocolate as it can be poisonous to dogs

jshrew wrote:
They will always see what they can get away with just a reminder to be über careful with chocolate as it can be poisonous to dogs

That is true, and I still give Pixee choc treats, but she has suffer no ill effects, and the amount as such is small. But thats my Pixee.

I was wondering about her diet. Her foster family said they found she didn't react well to soft food so they gave her dried wagg. They also gave her treats and I actually did ask how she was at their meal times and the foster mum did confess to me that she allowed her to lick out yoghurt cartons she had at breakfast time.
I continued with the dried food but gradually changed her to JWB. We began giving her various treats but we soon discovered after a couple of visits to vets that she has a sensitive stomach (as we found she was getting diarrhea a lot)
After trial and error we soon found out what didn't agree with her and what did.
I did look into maybe changing her in to the raw  meat diet but when I gave her a raw leg if lamb one day she showed no interest in it. (Which i did think was strange as my previous dogs would have had a field day. It almost seemed that she didn't know what to do with it?)
I am going to look into some pouches and perhaps as she has 2 meals a day give her one wet and one dry.
We will get there in the end.

You will get there! It sounds as if you are doing very well already. I can understand the island unit now; it's much easier for a dog to jump up onto that than to units that are placed along a wall. So that island unit needs to be left clear of temptation!

  

MumtoTiffany wrote: Tiffany is a beautifully natured lovely dog and we feel very lucky to have her even if she is a bit greedy

Despite her greedy nature, this is what's most important! Especially as you have children yourself.

The greed can be worked with, with patience, consistency & perseverance!

I have the same problem with my rescue staffy, Suzy. She has been with me since January. She can jump up onto the kitchen worktops and the dining table from a standstill, she just bends her knees and springs up, I have seen her do it although she usually waits until I am not there. I have learned not to leave things out but obviously I sometimes forget. At the beginning, I lost lots of things to her, the first was a pan of stew which was cooling on the cooker top. I went out for ten minutes, came back and it was gone, the pan was licked so clean that it took me a while to realise what had happened, I thought at first that someone had put the food away and washed the pan (fat chance haha!). She has eaten packs of butter, cheese, tupperware boxes have been destroyed so that the lovely cake inside could be eaten, etc. She has also eaten a whole tray of raw eggs that was on the counter top, the funny thing was that all the broken shells were in the lounge on the rug so I think she must have jumped up, got the egg, jumped down, gently carried each egg in her mouth into the room, over to the rug, then proceeded to break and eat them one by one, as there was no mess or egg shell anywhere else! Last summer we were on holiday in a caravan, the first day she opened the freezer which was very small and low down, and ate all the meat that we had bought and frozen for the week! We had to sellotape it shut after that for the rest of the holiday!

I agree with the other people on here, it is a matter of managing it. If I see Suzy jumping up onto the table or work tops I give her a firm “Off” and she gets down. She also responds to “Leave it” if I see her approaching anything that the grandkids are eating. Otherwise it’s just something I deal with if it happens. It’s usually very funny as well as annoying!