How to Stop a Dog From Begging!
Do you have a favorite furry canine friend that loves to beg? This begging behavior can not only be embarrassing when you have guests over, but it can lead to other behaviors which could become nasty, like aggressively going after food on your plate! Begging behavior must not be allowed to continue if you want to live in harmony with your pooch.
Begging is not a behavior that the dog can take all the credit for, unfortunately a human or perhaps more than one human at some time usually when the dog was a puppy started the action of feeding the dog while the human was eating and the behavior of begging became an accepted and learned behavior for the dog. Learned behavior can fortunately be unlearned if you are consistent in what you do next. Even if humans have the best of intentions when the feed a puppy or dog from their plate, the result is still the same, the dog starts to think that your food is his food and that he is entitled to have that food whether or not you offer it to them. Take a look at the food in your dog's food dish, now look at the food on your plate; which one would you rather have? Thought so, your food looks more appealing to your dog too, once they have a taste of it and learn to like it better than the dry food you give him. Even if you give your dog the most appealing canned dog food, your food is still going to be more appealing taste and by smell to your dog.
Tips for re-training your dog not to beg
The easiest way to stop the begging behavior immediately is to confine the dog to a kennel or at least to another room that has a closed door while you enjoy your meal or snack. It is especially a good idea to confine the dog if you have young children or other adults who cannot break the habit of feeding the dog from the table no matter how many times you ask them not too.
Humans can be just as difficult to break from bad habits.
You should make it clear when it is decided to stop the begging behavior that this is what the entire family is doing. All members of the family and any visitors must also be told that the dog is not allowed to receive food from the table. All food for the dog must be put in the dog's dish in order for the dog to be allowed to eat it. This rule must be known, understood and agreed to by all those who have been guilty of feeding the dog and by anyone coming to the table to eat in your household.
In order to allow the dog back out during snack and mealtimes everyone at the table will need to learn not to give in to the dog. When the dog comes begging everyone is to ignore the dog and continue to eat. You can feed the dog his normal meal at the same time if it is helpful, but feed the dog from his/her dish and not your hand. Never feed the dog from the hand, it will encourage begging. Always put food for the dog into his dish, unless you are outside training the dog with a treat.
It will take a few weeks of consistently ignoring the begging behavior by your dog and rewarding the dog for eating out of the dog food dish before your dog will get used to the new feeding behavior. The key is that all the humans eating at the table must be consistent in NOT feeding the dog from the table. If ANYONE starts to feed the dog from the table the training will be spoiled and the dog will continue the begging behavior. |
