Terrible Meal Manners

[JHAitch]

My husband and I have a 10 week old male boxer (Boudreaux). He is a fantastic dog and so incredibly smart...almost too smart! Our latest issue is that Boudreaux has started to beg for our food. We give him chicken and meat treats but nothing from the table really. Whenever we sit down to eat (anything, any time) he barks and yelps and whines incessantly. He'll do anything and everything to get to the food which includes jumping up at our chairs and pawing at us while we try to eat. We want to teach him to stop these bad manners, maybe teach him to go to 'his spot' (his bed) or anything else. We're just not sure how to go about it and are afraid that we might reinforce these behaviors. Any suggestions would be great. We just want a peaceful meal!!

 

[MonaC]

You have a lot of good ideas. He should not be at the table with you while you eat. Going to his "spot" is a good idea. If you crate him you can put him in it while you eat until he can stay in another spot. Any people food you feed him should be put in his bowl......... not hand fed, even away from the table. And when you feed him you should make him sit and stay till you release him after you put his bowl down. I think that is the best thing I taught Delilah!!!

;-) Mo

 

[ehayes21]

You have a lot of good ideas. He should not be at the table with you while you eat. Going to his "spot" is a good idea. If you crate him you can put him in it while you eat until he can stay in another spot. Any people food you feed him should be put in his bowl......... not hand fed, even away from the table. And when you feed him you should make him sit and stay till you release him after you put his bowl down. I think that is the best thing I taught Delilah!!!

;-) Mo

Great advice above! Simply put him in his crate that way he can't get to you. If you don't want to use the crate then find another spot to put him in. I am sure he'll protest, but you are going to have to ignore it. Good luck.

 

[DiverDiva]

It is a very good idea to teach him to go to his spot. For starters, you teach him to go to his spot when there are no distractions, and treat, treat, treat. Make him think that spot is a great place to be. Gradually build up the distractions, such as you eat something of little interest, like a cracker, while he stays in his spot. It took us a long time to train Mali, but now we can eat our dinner off the cofee table while watching a movie, and both dogs go to their spots. We pitch them each a piece of kibble between their front paws now and then, just to reinforce the concept that if there is any food to be had, it will be had at the spot, not at the table. Good luck.

 

[MyBoyChamp]

We crate Champ while we eat dinner. He really and truely doesn't seem to mind a bit. In fact now when I call out to hubby that "dinner is ready", Champ gets up and goes into his crate on his own. Of course, he always gets a treat for going in his crate. I had to laugh last night because I told hubby that dinner was ready and Champ went into his crate. Hubby asked if he had time to go out for a cigarette before dinner and so I tried to get Champ to come back out of his crate as we weren't going to start eating for another five minutes or so. Champ would not budge! He sat there and looked at me as if to say "You said dinner was ready, now where's my treat?!" LOL

Patty

 

[Mwarlzabwark]

the finding a spot is a good thing

When it was just charlie, getting him to stay away from the table was easy. Once the other two dogs came along, it seemed okay at first but then one would inch near which would make the others think hmm okay time for treats and inch near. So now we have our good old catch phrase, say grace. When we sit down if they walk by us we say go say grace and they all go in the living room and sit down. For years we had eaten in the living room so they had just gotten used to sitting down about four or five feet away and waiting. Until we stood to take our dishes to the kitchen they slept or played with their toys, and then once we went into the kitchen they knew okay we can get back up now. Now, having moved to a bigger house we eat in the nook and say grace apparently means go to the living room which is fine with me. They caught on quick, we were much more generous about treating them with some scraps if we got to eat in peace. If we couldn't eat our dinner without having to tell them to go sit somewhere then we didn't share. And if we got thru a meal without a beg we praised and shared.

 

[suzyqdogsmom]

Sending him to his spot is the best way I think. SuzyQ has always (after her crate training days were over) had to lie down on her doggie bed in the living room whenever she needs to be confined to one place. Whether it is a guest who doesn't want a slobbering happy dog or when we eat dinner etc. We never ever fed her even so much as a bite of food when we were eating and she never got the connection that it had anything to do with her. She never begs, she doesn't know what it is. If we have anything we want to give her after a meal, she gets it in the kitchen which is where her bowls are also. She will race you to the kitchen when we get up with our plates, just in case. When we do feed her a treat or anything she always has to sit first. Even if I put something in her dog dish, she has to sit until I tell her it is ok. I think that keeps her from being crazed about rushing her food dish .

 

[Widges]

Billy always goes to lie on his bed when we are at the table eating. It works well for us - when we 1st got him I used to be up and down every minute or so putting him back there. He soon picked up on what we wanted him to do while we were eating.

Good luck.