Charlie is misbehaving while we are away

[spoilemrotten]

Hello,

My boyfriend's Collie/Retriever is about 5 yrs old. When ever we leave the room or the house he can't resist to jump on the couch, eat the cat food or take food off the counters. He knows better! We can never catch him in the act. My boyfriend is a softy even if we did What can we do??

Thanks for all your help in advance~

[emmabeth]

You can instantly and miraculously cure the problem by putting the food away. Put cat food where he cant get it, dont leave food lying around.

Hes a dog - he doesnt 'know better'.

What he knows is, theres food and obviously, you don't want it or you wouldnt have left it there.

You cant teach your dog to have human values such as ownership of something you have left lying around, dogs dont think like that, as far as they are concerned if its not right next to you, or in your hand or mouth, its anyones for the taking. You will not EVER achieve teaching a dog not to steal kindly or particularly effectively in the situations you describe.

[spoilemrotten]

1st of all emmabeth, our cat is 17 years old, is blind and has a hard time walking. We live in a small condo and he can't find the bedroom. You don't think we haven't tried putting the food somewhere Charlie can't get it but Tobi can?!? You are mistaken! Do you think it is fair that Tobi can't eat when we are gone? Not to mention Charlie is tall enough on his hind legs to get on the counters and take anything he can see. I appriciate your kind words!

[spoilemrotten]

also separating them would be torture, Tobi is Charlie's lil buddy and he always goes and checks on him and nuzzles him. It's the cutest thing Tobi doesn't like to be alone either.

[Ocelot0411]

I don't really see the problem here. I appreciate that the cat is blind but no animal needs 24 hour access to food, so put it out of Charlies way when you are out. Its not unreasonable to expect Tobi to be without food when you are gone.

As Emmabeth says, you will never teach a dog not to take food left within his reach without doing something quite awful to him. Dogs are scavengers just as much as they are hunters and you cannot expect him not to take food when he has the opportunity. So just remove the opportunity by keeping it out of his reach.

If I left food within my dogs reach whilst I wasn't there and she didn't take it, she would be straight to the vets to see what was wrong.

[spoilemrotten]

Tobi has always been a fussy eater, ever since he was rescued it has been a struggle to get him to eat. If it meant leaving the food out while we are gone so he eats, thats what had to be done. Tobi is getting worse about eating so we have had to start feeding him with a spoon and coax him. Putting the food away now is much easier.

Previously we built a tall box for Tobi's food and put it on the other side of my desk. Charlie would climb on the desk, stretch his looooong body and still take the food. I have never had a dog go through such great lengths to get the cats food. He doesn't take it if he knows we are watching (even being sneaky-watching) because yes, "HE KNOWS BETTER"

Anywho, any ideas on keeping him off the couch once we leave? He has a nice big dog bed, and we place plastic shower curtains on the couch hoping he wont like the feel, but he will still get up there.

[Nettle]

Shut the door to the room the couch is in.

You really are expecting far too much of this dog. He's a dog, not a human, and you'll all have a much happier time together for understanding that.

I'm sorry if this is not what you want to hear, but think on it - you don't really have any problems with him at all, so long as you understand he's a dog. He doesn't think the way you do and his take on life is different from yours. He sees a comfortable place and he lies on it, he sees food and he eats it. He is a perfectly normal dog. Love him for being himself.

[spoilemrotten]

WOW, I didn't realize that it was too much to ask to keep him off the couch and to stop stealing food off the counters.

my bad!

[emmabeth]

No. He doesnt know better.

What he DOES know is that if he takes it when you are there, he gets told off.

When you are not there, you cannot tell him off, so its ok to take the food.

Beyond shutting the door to the room with the couch in, no there isnt a kind way of keeping him off it.

Put a throw on it that you can wash so he wont dirty the couch instead and live with it... or shut the door.

There simply are some things you cannot teach a dog not to do - to attempt to try would be distressing and confusing for him and will be unfair. Its like asking him not to be a dog!

Its true SOME dogs will not steal food, SOME dogs will not get on the sofa when you are gone, but these dogs behave this way naturally - I have a dog who will not take food I leave on my desk, and thats lovely but I would never expect it of a dog (and my other four dogs regularly push everything off my desk looking for food - the answer is for me to stop leaving food up here!).

As far as the catfood goes - your cat will probably get more food if you put it down at set times of the day for a set length of time, than he does now with the dog stealing it all.

[smiley]

This is only ONE of the many articles I found on the internet that may help

Stealing off the counter aka Counter Surfing

All dogs do it at some stage - whether it's counter surfing the kitchen bench, stealing the garbage, begging, thieving items from around the house or even snatching things from your hands.... they can't help themselves....

It's important to recognize that this is a perfectly natural behavior for your dog - dogs are scavengers from way back. This does not mean that we have to simply accept the thieving problem though. There are many strategies we can undertake to prevent items from ever being stolen or to rectify an existing thieving problem.

Apart from food stealing being an extremely annoying and frustrating habit for your dog to develop, it is also potentially a very dangerous one (thieving something poisonous, a sharp item or knocking over a boiling saucepan). Begin teaching your dog what you want him to do:
Put a treat on the counter and work at teaching a un-cued "leave it" which is proofed for duration, different items and whether you are present or not. Here's how to break it down:

Place a small piece of food ("teaser") on the counter with your hand covering it. C/T (click and treat) or praise and reward with a different treat for ignoring the teaser. Ignore any attempts to get the teaser. Do not say "leave it", just be patient. Practice this until your dog is leaving the "teaser" immediately after you put it on the counter and cover it with your hand.

Place the "teaser" on the counter uncovered - but be poised to cover it if your dog should decide to grab it. C/T (always with a different treat than the one on the counter) for calm behavior and ignoring the food on the counter. Practice this until your dog is great at it.

Slowly add distance between yourself and the teaser on the counter.

Now begin to increase the amount of time your dog must wait before you C/T him for leaving the teaser. Stay close while you first practice this.

Do short practices with you near by practicing with different teaser food items on the counter and in different areas of the counter.

Try adding a couple of these factors together (i.e distance and duration).

Make sure you practice turning your back and if you want to you can work on having him leave the food while you go out of sight. Begin by making it very quick and returning to jackpot him (give extra treats).

If he should accidentally get the food at some point, it's no big deal, but do your best to go at the right pace so that he is successful.

Don't forget to reward your dog once you are using this behavior in "real life" or he will soon realize that it is more beneficial to steal then wait for his paycheck.

As for getting on the couch when you are gone, placing items like aluminum foil, carpet runners upside down, sprays, scat mat, etc. on the couch. This will make the furniture less attractive to lay on.

If these situations were acceptable and not supposed to be such issues then there wouldn't be so many posts about your very situation with solutions on the internet. You are not out of the norm and don't deserve to be ridiculed for asking for help.

[Mattie]

Previously we built a tall box for Tobi's food and put it on the other side of my desk. Charlie would climb on the desk, stretch his looooong body and still take the food. I have never had a dog go through such great lengths to get the cats food. He doesn't take it if he knows we are watching (even being sneaky-watching) because yes, "HE KNOWS BETTER"

Anywho, any ideas on keeping him off the couch once we leave? He has a nice big dog bed, and we place plastic shower curtains on the couch hoping he wont like the feel, but he will still get up there.

Dogs don't steel, they are oportunists and anything left out is their's for the taking, so no he doesn't know better because he doesn't speak English and doesn't understand it, only the words you have taught him. We have to teach our babies how to talk and understand our language and house rules, but expect our dogs to know them when they are a different species.

What you are doing when you leave food out is teaching him that food is available for him to eat. You are setting him up to fail when you should be setting him up to succeed by putting the food away.

It is the same with the sofa, it is there and very comfortable, just nice to have a sleep on. Each time you allow him access to the sofa you are teaching him that it is ok to sleep on the sofa. He has learnt that when you are not there not to go one it because of your reaction.

If I don't want any of my dogs to go do something, I keep the door closed and deny them access, this takes all the stress of both my dogs and me.

[Nettle]

Smiley, none of us here ridicules people.

What we do is explain why dogs act the way they do, what we can reasonably expect to change and what is not reasonable and why.

We provide this advice in our own time and for no recompense, because we try to help dogs and owners understand each other better.

Stick around and I'm sure you'll come to agree.

[emmabeth]

Hi Smiley, welcome to the forum.

Before I start, if you are going to quote articles you find online, please can you credit them to whoever owns copyright?

The method you lay out is fine, and adhered to rigidly it should work - what you have to ask yourself is, is it FAIR to expect a scavenger, however well trained, to leave food, especially extremely high value food such as cat food, for hours at a time.

Personally, I dont think it is. Expecting a dog to leave food for a few minutes, yes, thats a reasonable thing, IF its taught (not merely expected).

What that article doesnt say, and I think its a fairly big thing to leave out - all the time you are going through that training procedure, you really need to prevent the dog from accidentally rewarding himself with 'stolen' food - so you would need to put the food away.

Since that method of teaching a dog to ignore food left out could take months - and even longer if the dog accidentally is rewarded by forgotten food - is it not just simpler and kinder all round if we teach ourselves to put food away?

Also - that method may work, on some dogs, to prevent them stealing food left in certain places, but you will have to teach ignoring food left in a multitude of places, food of many varieties as well, before it is really reliable. Simply teaching a dog not to take a loaf of bread off the side will not proof the dog against eating poisoned meat in the back yard, or chicken carcasses out of the bin.

As for getting on the couch when you are gone, placing items like aluminum foil, carpet runners upside down, sprays, scat mat, etc. on the couch. This will make the furniture less attractive to lay on.

It might work - but if you focus on why the dog gets on the sofa, maybe to comfort himself lying in a place that smells of his owners - you could cause a distressed dog, unhappy at being left. Again is it fair to attempt to teach this, distressing both dog and owner with likely repeated failure, or is it simpler and kinder all round to simply shut the door or put a throw on the sofa?

If these situations were acceptable and not supposed to be such issues then there wouldn't be so many posts about your very situation with solutions on the internet. You are not out of the norm and don't deserve to be ridiculed for asking for help.

There are many posts on the internet asking for miracle cures for things that are normal, often instinctive, dog behaviour. Many things are issues to those who do not understand why a dog behaves the way he does, and I like to advise people not to battle pointlessly with a long winded and difficult training regime, when there is a much simpler, kinder, faster answer.

Many people have an issue with dogs on the furniture - and yet never considered it foolish to have either a dog or an expensive sofa, in an open plan house. Should the dog have to be subjected to unpleasant aversives because the owner values a sofa over the dog?

Dog ownership means compromising on certain things - boy, I'd love an open plan house with white sofas and cream carpets, a fruit bowl on the table and a box of chocs open on the side.

But I chose to own dogs, so I make that compromise to have hard floors and throws on the sofas, and keep food in safe places. It makes for an infinately easier life for both me and my dogs because I;m not battling against their instincts to lie somewhere comfy that smells of me, or eat unattended food.


Learning to put food away means if done successfully, your dog wont ever access food he shouldnt have.

Attempting to teach a dog to always ignore all food he isnt specifically given, could result in a dog taking food because the lesson wasnt taught properly, or because it wasnt reinforced sufficiently. Not something I would rely on, since it goes against a dogs instincts.

There are lots of things we can teach dogs, we can teach them to walk to heel and not break that heel until told to do so.

But im not about to walk my dog who has a fantastic heel, off lead down a busy road, not when i have the ability to use a leash and 100% prevent an accident.

It boils down to common sense - just because you could, doesnt always mean you should.

[thistledown]

I'm afraid I know very little about cats, but maybe you could tackle the problem from a different angle and get some advice about how to get Tobi feeding normally when you put food down.

If you could get Tobi onto a regular feeding regime when you give the food, you could clear it away when you are not there and this would remove the temptation from Charlie.

It does seem a little harsh that you are expecting Charlie to resist temptation with food in order to accommodate Tobi's feeding problems IMHO.

If you are having to leave them both for so long that Tobi can't do without a meal it begs the question of how long they are being left and whether this in itself could be addressed (i.e. a neighbour willing to pop in and feed Tobi and let Charlie out for a pee).

As Smiley says, there are indeed thousands of people on the net asking the same question and getting a multitude of ingenious suggestions, but I would always tend to favour the simple options and just put the food away and shut the door into the room with the sofa - well, actually that's not strictly true 'cos I'd let the dog on the sofa ...lol...

[Mattie]

A dog that knows what it is like to go without food for some time is very difficult to teach not to take food that is available. The bag of bones that often comes into rescues will be very difficult to teach not to take food.

For everyones benefit, the dogs and the owners it is a lot less stressful to keep the food away and the kitchen door closed, dogs can and do learn to open cupboard to get to food. I have had that myself on several occasions.

By being vigilant over not leaving food out most dogs stop looking for left out food so when you do make a mistake, the food isn't touched.

When people come on here asking for advice and they get the same or very similar advice from several people, who are all volunteers who give their experiences free, if they don't want to listen that is up to them, it is there life their dog. When we see a dog who's owner consistantly thinks a dog understand English and thinks like humans then we get frustrated, and it is the dog that suffers for their owner's thinking.

It is the same with the settee, if you don't want you dog to to on it, don't give them access. It isn't fair to a dog to expect them to understand and behave like a human. We have to teach our children our language and how to behave but expect dogs to do this automatically.

Put yourself in the dog's position, you don't speak their language, they don't speak yours. They want you to sit but you don't understand what they said so you just look at them. You get a smack, you don't know what it was for and are very confused. Eventually you will work out that that word meant sit and because you don't want any more smacks, you sit every time you hear it. Far better to set the dog up to do what you want, it is less stressful for both the dog and the owner.