dog behavior training

Different owners take different approaches to the classic situation of dogs begging for food. Some owners allow it, others don’t, but I suspect that the majority of owners have found it a problem at some point.

It is understandable but bad practice to allow your dog to beg for food while you are eating, with a few aspects of it listed here:

• By not allowing it from the beginning the problem would be avoided but anyone reading this has probably missed that opportunity - your dog’s behavior includes begging for food and you want to do something about it. Using treats as a reward is not going to work!
• The scent of food is a driver of your dog’s natural behavior; human’s food is not necessarily the right balance for a good dog diet in any case.
• You need to be the alpha, the established leader, in your dog’s natural “pack” mentality. This applies to all aspects of training and particularly here. Food is a key area in alpha behavior - the leader eats first and gets the best bits. So a part of any solution is to only feed your dog its normal food, after you have eaten, ideally with a break between your eating and hers, and in a separate area from where you usually eat.
• You must be absolutely consistent in your behavior about food with your dog. She only eats when you allow it. Making her sit before you present her with any food is a good reinforcing part of the training process.

Standard commands such as “sit” might work but not usually at the beginning and will also have to be reinforced, at least initially, with other measures, in a roughly ascending order of seriousness:

• Making sure she sits away from the table as a minimum
• Train her to go to her own area
• Put the dog on a leash and tie it to something distant from where you are eating
• Put her in another room while you eat

With persistence, consistency on your part and some time and patience, these measures should break the bad habit.

In response to a few questions, I decided it is worth incorporating some articles on the standard commands for dog training. Although I thought these are basic, on thinking about it I’ve realised that we all teach dogs in our own way, which is absolutely fine, but a couple of reasons emerged as to why this might be worthwhile:

• some methods take longer than others
• more importantly, if not taught efficiently, some dogs learn variations or additional aspects that might not be quite what is required later and “unlearning” is not much fun for you or your dog

The next few posts are about the individual main commands, and can be found quickly by referring to the category list on the right hand side of this page.

They will cover:

• Sit
• Stay
• Come
• Down / Lie
• Heel
• Other (Quiet, Fetch & Give)

The training of these basic commands are for teaching your dog while it is young and not to the level required for advanced training for shows, etc. These are intended as the basics, while exhibition standards require much tighter control for measures of obedience to be assessed, for example.

In addition, there are also the links around the website which put these commands into context in different situations, as well as the other posts which discuss common behavioral problems, which is the main subject for this site. To make these commands effective, the over-riding points to remember are:

• repetition and consistency, initially when training a puppy and later as part of the normal day-to-day activity with your dog
• a calm and patient approach and tone of voice
• praising, but as your dog grows through the puppy stage, without being over-enthusiastic as it could break a spell in which he is being particularly receptive and more training could be included
• rewarding at the right point and ideally in a reducing pattern as your dog grows and everything about the basic training is becoming natural as it should.

Any dog is best trained when it is at its most alert, not tired (for most of the commands) and possibly even a little hungry. As the dog will be a puppy when learning the basic commands, a short session using food rewards then a smaller meal can prove highly effective.