# Look At That .. Food?



## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

I asked a top trainer how to stop my puppy from ruining the picnics of strangers, and his response was that we cannot stop that behaviour but we can manage it by stimulating the dog in more energetic ways. Seriously?!

The article attached describes how to use "Look At That" to stop a dog reacting negatively to other dogs. The training uses neutral objects to teach the game, then replaces the neutral objects with the problem target so that your dog reacts to seeing the target by initiating the "Look At That" game. Should the same training work to stop a dog reacting negatively to food?


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## ceegee (Mar 26, 2015)

Well, I agree with the trainer that the key to stopping a puppy from ruining other peoples' picnics is to manage his behaviour, notably by keeping him on a leash when around other people until he's learned how to behave. As pointed out several times previously, food-related bad behaviour - stealing, counter-surfing, snatching, etc. - is self-rewarding. In other words, once the dog has discovered that these behaviours result in a nice food treat for him, he's going to keep doing them, and the more he's able to engage successfully in them, the harder it becomes to stop him, because of the rewards they bring. So by allowing your puppy to be off-leash in a public place where people are eating, before you've properly trained him how to behave calmly and how to obey your recall, you've made the whole process intrinsically more difficult for yourself, because your puppy has now taught himself (1) that other people's picnics = food for him and (2) that ignoring the recall command gets him a terrific reward (the other family's food).

A second point is that your dog is not reacting negatively to food. He's reacting in a perfectly normal way. Eating is natural. A dog sees food, he wants to eat it. If you want him to wait until a human offers him food, then that is the skill you should teach him. It's not something that will come naturally to him. And until you've taught that skill (which will probably take several months), his behaviour has to be managed. If, in the meantime, you keep giving him opportunities to behave badly, then you're simply undoing your training.

And regarding your question about how to stop your puppy from ruining the picnics of strangers, it wasn't the puppy who ruined the picnics, it was the human who should have had the puppy under control and didn't. The puppy was doing what puppies do when humans abdicate their responsibilities.


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## Anon-2130948gsoni (Apr 12, 2014)

I certainly understand why you’d want to let your dog offleash, especially in a country where it seems to be more the norm than most places in the US. 

But, as you’ve discovered, the problem with doing that before his brain has matured and he has a solid couple of years of training is that “you can’t catch me!!!!” is a WONDERFUL game among puppies anyway and then you add in the special added bonus of pillaging picnics and that’s all kinds of reinforcement for that behavior at an age when they’re hardwired to imprint what’s good and what’s not. Again, perfectly understandable, but it’s also true that some dogs will never be reliable offleash because they’re goofy sweet lunkheads who love to RUN and when the zoomies are upon them, their brains shut off.

One of the most useful things a trainer ever told me was to train the dog I have, not the dog I thought I’d have. Your boy may be one of those joyous, galumphing knuckleheads (no judgment from me, I’ve had two!) and yes, absolutely train the daylights out of him and one day maybe he will suddenly mature, but there aren’t any guarantees. Believe me. 🙄 

In the meantime, to keep him safe, I would always assume the worst-case scenario and manage him accordingly. A leash or a long line in any outdoor situation is probably the best way to protect him from his worst instincts and stop him from continuing to self-reinforce the behavior.

He sounds like a great dog…he just has one big blindspot, like most of us. And FWIW, training most Goldens to react negatively to food is something I can’t even envision...it might be easier to teach him quantum physics! You can certainly work on a solid “leave it,” but even that takes a long time and since it’s a puppy’s basic instinct to hunt down a delicious (or even disgusting) smell, it’s a long process.

He’s a good boy and I’m sorry you were embarrassed by his behavior. We’ve all been there!


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

I appreciate your inputs, and you might be right, but I need to try because my wife has lost patience. If there is a way to get him to perceive food differently then I need to discover it for his sake.



Noreaster said:


> One of the most useful things a trainer ever told me was to train the dog I have, not the dog I thought I’d have.


Trainers told me to stop a training session when he is over-stimulated; the problem with that approach is that he is always overstimulated and thus excluded from lessons. Under their direction he was getting worse because he was not getting an opportunity to learn anything useful; they only got as far as teaching him that tugging is a thing.

I think we all agreed his weakness is that he very is easily over-stimulated. If he beats his tail on the floor with happiness then he might also pee himself right there, or get an erection, or enter a high speed zoom, and so on. After a session with professionals he was ripping at people, clothes, hair, furniture, and the "training" brought shrill screams and *actual tears* into my family.

Rather than give up on him I took a different approach. My approach is to continue a lesson irrespective of how stimulated he becomes, and I have found that when he zooms there is hope that he will learn. The professionals said that would not work, but lessons with over-stimulation are the only lessons that have worked, and now people ask me how I made him so well behaved. What I actually did is replace every element of training with a more intense version; such as one big all-night session instead of a few minutes each day, wearing leather gloves instead of using a naked hand, or tying him to a door instead of holding his lead.

He came to us at 8 weeks old a bundle of fun, and he is now again a bundle of fun, but there was a period in between when he was receiving professional training and the chaos unleashed almost split my family. We are now extremely cautious of trusting any trainer.

They even managed to mess up his "Sit" by trying to teach it again in their own way. They insisted that it needs to be enthusiastic, that we need a treat, a hand gesture, and so on. All that extra stimulation just made him hyper. At 8 weeks, and again today, he sits nicely in response to a monotone quietly spoken "Sit" command - why do trainers need to be make it more complicated than that?

Today, if he accidentally touches me with his teeth, he backs off to grab a soft toy of his choosing, and then returns to interacting with me using the toy as a mouth barrier - he taught himself to do that. He walks and cuddles and doesn't bark or bite without provocation. When it comes to feeding he waits patiently for the bowl, or for a hand to open, but those behaviours are only true in specific contexts.

In public he is a different animal, not aggressive but also not well mannered. At home on the lead he walks nicely by my side, in a public street he pulls frantically. He sits and looks at me when I hold food, but he charges at food held by a stranger. He stands on his back legs with his arms open to tell me he wants to play, but he jumps up and punches strangers in the balls. I am clueless about how to train him to be a good citizen, and he cannot afford the risk that a trainer will mess him up again at home.

What I am looking for is a 1:1 trainer who will join us and observe and help, but all the trainers I speak to tell me I have a normal puppy and that I should join their group and follow their syllabus. The problem is he is only normal because we abandoned a syllabus, and I cannot risk repeating what happened the last time he attended a puppy school.


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## Sweet Girl (Jun 10, 2010)

They key to all of your problems with your pup is that you are still giving him way too much freedom. He should not be off leash. He should not be around food that he can steal unless he is leashed and under control. If someone invites you to a barbecue, either leave the pup at home or keep him firmly on leash with you. Until you stop giving him the opportunity to steal food, he is not going to learn anything. He is getting rewarded every time for perfectly normal dog behaviour. You are the human. You have to control his access.

My dog is 8 years old with a very strong leave it/drop it. But I would never, ever let her be off leash in a park where people are sitting on blankets eating. That is way too much temptation for even the best behaved dogs, plus it's really bad behaviour on the dog owner's part. People should be allowed to pincic without fighting off a dog trying to take their food.


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## ceegee (Mar 26, 2015)

Howler said:


> (...)
> I think we all agreed his weakness is that he very is easily over-stimulated. If he beats his tail on the floor with happiness then he might also pee himself right there, or get an erection, or enter a high speed zoom, and so on. After a session with professionals he was ripping at people, clothes, hair, furniture, and the "training" brought shrill screams and *actual tears* into my family.
> (...)
> He came to us at 8 weeks old a bundle of fun, and he is now again a bundle of fun, but there was a period in between when he was receiving professional training and the chaos unleashed almost split my family. We are now extremely cautious of trusting any trainer.
> ...


This is a helpful response with a lot of good information.

Just to be clear, we're talking about a pup who's about four months (16 weeks) old, right?

I continue to think that you're expecting far too much of such a young puppy. Dog training is a long-term thing. You don't get instant results. Just because you try something and don't get a result quickly, it doesn't mean the thing you are trying is wrong. It just means it hasn't had time to work yet. The fact that he's well-mannered at home but not in public simply means that the training hasn't yet had time to work. Keep doing it, keep practising in different contexts, and it will eventually work. But your dog is still too young to expect this type of control in public places full of temptation. And shrill screaming is the worst thing you can do - it feeds stimulation. In addition, education, whether for humans or for dogs, is never a straight-line experience. Two steps forward, one step backwards. It's normal. That's how living creatures learn. With a young puppy, just because he can do something today, it doesn't mean he'll be able to do it next week. But the chances are good that he'll be able to do it consistently in two years' time. It's the nature of education. And dogs don't generalize well. You have to practise the same exercise in different contexts. It's frustrating to think that he can do something at home but not in the street. But that's how dogs are. It's normal. You go back to the beginning and teach the exercise again, in the new context.

A lot of what you say about your pup could also have been said about my first Golden, Ruby. I had asked the breeder for a female pup with the potential to become a great agility partner. There were two females in the litter: one nice, balanced, middle-of-the-road dog who was a joy to be around, and the other one: the first to escape the whelping box, the first to eat solid food, the first to break out of the living room, the first to do everything. The breeder chose the "other" one for me. Her reason? "If I gave this puppy to a home that wanted her as a pet, she'd drive them mad. They simply wouldn't be able to handle her. This is a pup that will need a job in order to function well." When I first took Ruby to puppy class, she was an absolute hellion. When we let her off the leash, she ran around the room like a crazy dog, terrorizing the other pups, grabbing treat bags off chairs and flinging herself at children. It took three of us to herd her into a corner in order to catch her. I left that class convinced I would never be able to do anything at all with her. The next class, I had a long chat with the trainer. She told me to persevere. Not to let Ruby off leash so she wouldn't self-reward bad behaviour. To be fun and enthusiastic with my training, so that what I wanted the pup to do was more fun than what the pup might do if left to her own devices. To be consistent. Not to reward tantrums. Not to give up.

That first session of six puppy classes was torture. My pup howled and screamed when prevented from running wild, or when subjected to experiences such as nail clipping or baths (both these activities were in class). But there were bright spots too. When we got out the puppy agility equipment, she flung herself into the tunnels and onto the wobble boards when most of the other pups were afraid or cautious. She loved any activity that involved figuring something out. She loved fast-paced activities (following on leash - the trainer advised me to walk quickly or run, and to change direction often). At first, she would become over-stimulated, but with time she learned to direct her energy into the activity, instead of against it. I enrolled for the following class - puppy obedience. It got better. We used the same training methods, the same clicker-reward system. There were still some disasters: she still couldn't be allowed off-leash, and stays with distractions were awful. But there was progress. I practised all the activities constantly, in different contexts. Drills at home, practice sessions in superstore car parks, shopping malls, etc. One activity that we did from week one was to go and stand at a Walmart entrance with a bag full of treats and ask passing strangers to command her to sit, in exchange for a treat - so she would learn good greeting manners. It took a few sessions, but it worked. I've done this with two other puppies since then, and it's a wonderful exercise to teach polite greeting techniques. It worked a lot faster with my current Golden, but he's a very different personality from Ruby.

We kept going with obedience, to competition standard, and started agility training when she was seven or eight months old. The rest is history. Ruby loved agility and flung herself into it with gusto. Her breeder was correct: all she needed was a job. She was an amazing partner. Fast forward three years, and Ruby won her first provincial agility championship (she won four in all). Fast-forward seven years, and she won the Canadian national agility championship.

She was never an easy dog. The brashness that made her such a wonderful working partner also made her a very difficult house dog. She once used a buffet table as a springboard to leap over the 4' fence around our pool and "rescue" the children who were swimming. She was never trustworthy around food - she learned not to steal if we were present, but she could never be left alone in the kitchen - and so she wasn't. She taught herself how to open the fridge. She broke countless lamps, screen doors and fragile pieces of indoor and outdoor furniture in her excesses of enthusiasm. Most memorably, she ran through a closed window to get to a squirrel in the garden (there was glass everywhere - we were very lucky that she didn't hurt herself).

She died suddenly, at age 8, of cardiac hemangiosarcoma. It was the most devastating experience of my life. It's been six years and I'm still processing the loss.

The things I've been suggesting for you are things that have worked, not only with my brash, brilliant, over-the-top golden, but with hundreds of other high-energy working dogs at our training school (which specializes in training sport dogs). But as with education and training of any kind, you have to be patient and consistent. You have to repeat the exercises hundreds and sometimes thousands of times, and keep repeating them even if the dog won't do them at first. He'll do them eventually. You have to find ways of engaging his interest. Instead of killing his brashness, you have to become more fun than the things he would do for himself if given the chance. And most importantly, you mustn't give him the chance to self-reward bad behaviour. That is the very base. You might also have to think about finding him a job to do: agility, hunting, competitive obedience, nose work, dock diving, frisbee, etc.

I hope this is helpful. I know what you're going through - I've lived it and not only survived, but turned that dog into a national sports champion. If I could choose one piece of advice that you would have to take even if you didn't want to, it would be this: keep your puppy under control, on a leash, in public and around food, so that he can't self-reward. And accept that you may have the kind of dog who will need this kind of control throughout his life.


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

Sweet Girl said:


> They key to all of your problems with your pup is that you are still giving him way too much freedom. He should not be off leash. He should not be around food that he steal unless he is leashed and under control. If someone invites you to a barbecue, either leave the pup at home or keep him firmly on leash with you. Until you stop giving him the opportunity to steal food, he is not going to learn anything. He is getting rewarded every time for perfectly normal dog behaviour. You are the human. You have to control his access.
> 
> My dog is 8 years old with a very strong leave it/drop it. But I would never, ever let her be off leash in a park where people are sitting on blankets eating. That is way too much temptation for even the best behaved dogs, plus it's really bad behaviour on the dog owner's part. People should be allowed to pincic without fighting off a dog trying to take their food.


My suggestion is that you stop making assumptions about things you cannot see. In the picnic event you are recounting he was playing fetch in a dog park; where else is he supposed to run? This thread is not about that incident. With the pork incident his leash was being held by the owner of the pork. This thread is also not about that incident.

This thread is about training a dog to play a game instead of taking food. If you are saying that is not possible, then I will gladly consider your views, but please don't make up assumptions about how often my puppy is off-leash (which is technically never because I need it to safely catch him running near roads, and he drags his leash when he is chasing a ball).

As it happens we know Murphy will abandon small amounts of food to be in the same room as us, so there may be something to work from, but I don't know how and that is why I seek a trainer.


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

ceegee said:


> This is a helpful response with a lot of good information.
> 
> Just to be clear, we're talking about a pup who's about four months (16 weeks) old, right?
> 
> ...


Thank you ceegee for sharing so many personal details.

I can relate to your experience with puppy Ruby. Our breeder knew we wanted a therapy dog, and to be fair Murphy is halfway there provided there is no food around. Murphy is now very nearly 18 weeks, and weighs 18.5kg (weighed him accurately today).

Murphy was the biggest pup in his litter, and his parentage are both champion show dogs and working dogs. I am told by other dog owners that he has particularly big paws for a GR; "_Oh my, look at those paws_" is the most common alert. I suggested to one trainer by phone that Murphy might be highly driven because of all the problems we had with him staying focussed for hours and skipping classes; she laughed and said he is not at all driven and just needs the same standard puppy syllabus that made our lives hellish. She made that conclusion without seeing him and without asking any questions, which I found remarkable. In contrast the top trainer I mentioned in another thread suggested wobble boards and such like, but he first needs Murphy to pass his assessment, and I have no idea how to prepare Murphy for that - the closest Murphy has come to agility equipment is squeezing between dining chairs to collect stray kibble! How old should a puppy be before trying out agility? I was told the assessment is looking at the dog's interactions and the equipment I used - what do you think that assessment might be? Can an untrained dog with a novice owner even pass such an assessment?

To be honest I am confused by the whole agility thing when we want a therapy dog - are the two complementary?


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## JulieCAinMA (Jun 19, 2020)

Howler said:


> My suggestion is that you stop making assumptions about things you cannot see. In the picnic event you are recounting he was playing fetch in a dog park; where else is he supposed to run? This thread is not about that incident. With the pork incident his leash was being held by the owner of the pork. This thread is also not about that incident.
> 
> This thread is about training a dog to play a game instead of taking food. If you are saying that is not possible, then I will gladly consider your views, but please don't make up assumptions about how often my puppy is off-leash (which is technically never because I need it to safely catch him running near roads, and he drags his leash when he is chasing a ball).
> 
> As it happens we know Murphy will abandon small amounts of food to be in the same room as us, so there may be something to work from, but I don't know how and that is why I seek a trainer.


I'm still trying to decide if you're for real, or just having fun with us. I mean who picnics in a dog park? Dog parks are fenced enclosures that dogs run and play in, they are not full of picnicking people!?! Now if you mean you are playing in the park with your dog and people are also picnicking, then Sweet Girl is spot on. Your original post states, "*I asked a top trainer how to stop my puppy from ruining the picnics of strangers,*", and when posters share strategies, you most often get defensive. Since this is a web-based forum, no one can "see" anything. We all rely on what the original poster is describing and then do our best to share strategies that might work. Also, I have to say, spending an entire night training your 16 week old puppy while s/he was tied to the door, sounds borderline abusive. That fun children's' book idea that I had during the pork roast escapade, with Murphey running through yards stealing entire prok roast dinners (which you now tell us the owner of the feast allowed him to eat, which then isn't a Murphey behavior issue, it's a human behavior issue), is turning into a horror story. I hope for Murphey's sake that you are just having fun with us.


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## SoCalEngr (Apr 11, 2020)

We have used 1-on-1 trainers. If you go this route, you need to find one you can work with.

The first trainer we used had great credentials, had worked for many years with the San Diego Zoo's animal programs. But, this trainer was all about "positive only". While we agree it's better to reinforce desired behavior, we had problems with zero negative consequences.

The second trainer was also big on positives. But, they were also understanding of the idea that, sometimes, negative consequences need to ensue. But, that consequence could simply be a few seconds of timeout, it need not be anything serious.

I will also note that, in my experience, the best trainers observe how _*your*_ behavior is influencing that of your dog. It was surprising, and a bit humbling, to learn how we were causing some of the behaviors we were asking our trainer to correct.

Best of luck...

p.s. I'll opine, perhaps unwelcome based on some of the prior responses, that most everyone responding is trying to help. You may not consider some of their responses to be helpful (and, you might even be correct), but they're still trying to help. You might want to consider how snapping on one person may influence others (i.e., might cause them to reconsider posting) who you might find more helpful.


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

JulieCA said:


> We all rely on what the original poster is describing and then do our best to share strategies that might work.


I agree, and I edit my posts because I rarely communicate details accurately in a first pass. However, what I like about forums is there is ample opportunity to ask for clarification.



JulieCA said:


> Also, I have to say, spending an entire night training your 16 week old puppy while s/he was tied to the door, sounds borderline abusive


I don't know what to make of your attacks on me, but you are attacking me.

As I explained (in a different thread) there are highly respected training videos on youtube that used the leash to force a Sit each time their puppy started biting. That technique requires the trainer to move their hand and leash above the dog. When I used that technique with Murphy he jumped up and grabbed my hand, so the approach failed. In those videos they recommended quitting the session but I needed to fix him urgently so quitting was not an option. I changed the approach and I replaced my hand with a door handle. He was attached to the door for the duration of the Sit command only, which does not take very long, and he was released with praise each time he complied.



SoCalEngr said:


> The second trainer was also big on positives. But, they were also understanding of the idea that, sometimes, negative consequences need to ensue. But, that consequence could simply be a few seconds of timeout, it need not be anything serious.


That is exactly where I have ended up. Positive reinforcement is great but it could take an eternity waiting for the right behaviour to randomly emerge, and I hypothesise that few of us can give that much time to training their dog. Furthermore, it could be a physically painful long wait.



JulieCA said:


> That fun children's' book idea that I had during the pork roast escapade, with Murphey running through yards stealing entire prok roast dinners (which you now tell us the owner of the feast allowed him to eat, which then isn't a Murphey behavior issue, it's a human behavior issue), is turning into a horror story.


Reality, with all its complex interconnected dynamics, is sometimes hard to convey in words. I only said he took a pork dinner. Someone invited him into their garden, and they held him by his collar. He is a strong boy and he took the initiative to relieve them of their pork dinner, which perhaps serves them right, but I still wish he had not done that. I wish he had strong impulse control and that they had returned him saying he was a good boy. As it turns out the elderly couple adored him regardless, but that does not make his behaviour the right one.

As stated various times in this forum we hope he becomes a therapy dog, and my expectation (correct me if I am wrong) is that a therapy dog does not visit hospitals to eat patients' sandwiches. Perhaps therein lies the answer I am looking for; perhaps I can use the training explained in the PDF and replace 'other dog' with 'sandwich trolley'. If it works, @JulieCA, I might thank you for annoying me into defending every detail but right now I feel ambivalent.


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## Anon-2130948gsoni (Apr 12, 2014)

Okay, I’m going to try another approach…gently, you’re asking much too much from a puppy this age. You don’t even really have a relationship with him yet, because he’s too young and you haven’t had him long enough. You have a young child, IIRC? This is like deciding when your child was two that she was going to be classical composer by God and driving her all over the place trying to find her a tutor that would teach her notation and classical piano and transcription and being annoyed when you didn’t like what those teachers said…and I’m referring to the trainers you’ve consulted, not the people trying to help here.

Not every child becomes a Mozart. Not every dog will be suited to be a therapy dog…even Guide Dog puppies, who are specifically bred and selected to ultimately become guide dogs and trained from day one have a washout rate of 40%. So try to temper those expectations at this point, because it may just lead to disappointment, ultimately.

Above all, your dog needs to learn to trust you and to love to learn. Right now he’s not capable of what you’re asking on a reliable basis because his brain isn’t developed. He may get it right sometimes, but that’s more chance than real learning.

You won’t be able to train your dog, even at an age-appropriate level, to every possible situation you may encounter. That’s why you need to have a solid basis of trust with your dog, so when it hits the fan, the dog’s first instinct is to look at you for how to handle it. You don’t get that kind of relationship quickly, easily or in the first year of his life. Maybe not even the second….Goldens are slow to mature.

I would ask you to try to relax. This is not something that can be forced or project managed or put on a GANT chart with milestone goals. Find a trainer who will help you learn to read your dog so you can communicate with him more effectively and try to keep an open mind to their methods. The good ones have seen a whole lot of dogs and have many methods to help, _when your dog is mentally and physically capable of learning them._

Unless you can communicate with your dog in a collaborative way, few of your hopes for him will come true.

I’m going to say one more thing: a Golden may not be the right dog for you. You might want to reconsider a herding or guarding breed that will mature more quickly and be more trainable earlier. I have had herders and they can learn amazingly quickly, even as puppies, but I will also point out that those breeds aren’t often good therapy dogs. But maybe there’s another sport, like agility or rescue work or tracking, where one of these dogs would excel and give you what you’re looking for.

Give yourself and your puppy a breather. It sounds like your family is giving you some pressure, as well, and that doesn’t help. It doesn’t sound like you’re enjoying Murphy much and that’s a shame. Maybe it would be best to consider taking him back to the breeder while he’s still quite adoptable to a different situation where he might be a better fit.

Puppies are HARD. They’re not for everybody and there’s no shame in that.


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

Noreaster said:


> Okay, I’m going to try another approach…gently...


Okay. Let me respond, gently...

Everything a dog learns is an incremental improvement. The number of increments a particular dog achieves in a day, week, or whatever does not change the fact the improvement is made up of incremental improvements on whatever they could do before.

I do not ask for help getting Murphy to Sit and wait for 30 minutes because I know it will take a lot of reinforcement to build up from his current record of about 4 seconds.

Where I ask for help is in finding the first lesson; a cornerstone that incremental improvement can be built upon. I'm not asking for ideas on how to make him ignore all food for the duration of my next meal; what I am asking for is the lesson to work on.

For example, when my wife is eating at the dining table I take Murphy for a walk around that dining table. I am not tormenting him, and nothing I do is _borderline abusive._ What I view as important is that I am not letting Murphy avoid the challenge, and each mealtime challenge is a great opportunity for him to incrementally improve on whatever he did the last time he was in that situation. 

He will walk past her and look at me, which is fine. If I look away, or if I am not there, he is immediately back to counter surfing and that is not OK. 

What I am looking for is a better training exercise, not because he will suddenly do everything right, but because our training effort will not be a fruitless expenditure. Likewise, the "Look At That" game would take a long time to train and I do not want to start that training if its not going to deliver the change that we seek.


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## mylissyk (Feb 25, 2007)

Howler said:


> What I am looking for is a better training exercise, not because he will suddenly do everything right, but because our training effort will not be a fruitless expenditure. Likewise, the "Look At That" game would take a long time to train and I do not want to start that training if its not going to deliver the change that we seek.


GO SETTLE








Teach Your Dog to 'Go Settle' | Victoria Stilwell Positively


This is a great cue to use when you do not want your dog begging at the table, when you have guests visiting you, or when you just need your dog to stay in a particular place for a period of time.




positively.com





There is no quick fix. Every training effort will be a fruitless expenditure if you do not invest the time it takes to teach. And that is your entire problem, you want a quick fix and you will fail, and and you will make this puppy fail because you refuse to put in the long term training puppies require. You will never see the results you want because you refuse to put in the effort it takes.

You expect that an 18 week old PUPPY will be fully trained, and completely well behaved. You are expecting way too much from a puppy. And to make it all so much worse you refuse to do the things that will teach the puppy how you want him to behave. That adult dog you see that is well behaved, calm, sitting or laying down around strangers with meals out in public, leaving human belongings alone, and being a perfect angel Took YEARS to Train To Be That Well Behaved.

What do you want him TO DO instead of "ruining a picnic". Do you seriously think that a puppy, who is not mature enough nor been alive long enough to even begin to be trained, to leave food alone? Show him what you want him TO DO instead of insisting you need to find a way to make him STOP doing something. But that requires investing time.

You don't want him rushing up to people who have food, teach him an alternative behavior, or give him something more interesting to focus on. But that requires investing time.

I CAN’T LEAVE ANY FOOD ANYWHERE – MY DOG WILL STEAL IT!





I can’t leave any food anywhere - my dog will steal it! | Victoria Stilwell Positively


Is your dog an accomplished thief? Find out how to be able to leave food anywhere in your home and not have it nicked!




positively.com





I seriously want to know who the breeder is so I can send them all your posts. I am positive that if they knew how completely unreasonable you are about this puppy they would demand you return him. And you SHOULD return him to the breeder because you hate this dog. Pages and pages and pages of complaints about him is all I see. I don't think there is a moment since you got him that this puppy has been loved or enjoyed. You have zero positive things to say about him and expect things from him that he simply is not capable of at his age, and won't ever be capable of because you refuse invest the time it takes to teach him.

Just stop. Just stop posting on this board asking how to make this baby puppy stop some unwanted behavior, and then flat out refuse every single suggestion offered and argue that absolutely none of the training and methods offered, by very experienced, very knowledgeable dog people, will work on this puppy. He is 100% normal for a puppy, doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary for a puppy, and yet you believe everything he does is awful, wrong, and can't be corrected.

The only thing wrong with this puppy is you.

Everyone, we all, myself included, need to stop replying to this person. He is either incapable of taking instruction or he's a troll getting a big laugh at all of us.


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

@mylissyk I do not have time to waste posting about details that are going well.

I am sensing an odious mentality in this forum where posters are complaining about a person who is seeking help while at the same time assuming that is nothing is going well. Many things about Murphy are perfect, and some things I posted about over the months were corrected at home _after_ we sacked his first trainer.

You ask about the breeder. In fact, the breeder encouraged us to abandon the training that was being provided because that training was not consistent with the type of training she uses for her GRs. She encourages training, but only good training. Furthermore, our breeder highlighted the first six months are crucial for training and after that it is game over. Most responses here are telling me to relax and wait years, but hopefully you can appreciate why I would be feeling anxious about the fast approaching six month deadline. Our breeder is also available to provide advice if we need it, but I do not feel we should burden her because Murphy is a great puppy _most_ of the time _and_ you are telling me he is behaving normally. The niggles we have are things we feel we should be able to improve, with a little help, and I am sorry you feel burdened.

I sense you feel we are "high pressure parents" and we should just let Murphy develop at a slower pace. I understand, but please consider the expectations set by our breeder and that 6 month window.

I post about his particular weaknesses as they emerge, which is when I need help, not as they are resolved which is when I no longer need help. His history of weaknesses are also a history of corrections. In fact, if you really believe "_pages and pages and pages of complaints about him is all I see_" then by the same token there must be an equal measure of corrections.

As for Settle (thank you) I have consistently looked for opportunities to reward him for Settle from before he turned 9 weeks. It is one that I am still working on. I do ask him to lie Down, and he will lie down for a long time, but he won't rest his head on his paw - he instead poses with his nose and paws pointing forward while waiting for his treat; when he gets bored of waiting he jumps up to play. If I walk into a room where he is actually settled he reacts to my approach before it is possible to reward the settle, so from a vocabulary point of view he still does not know what Settle means.

From when my wife is alone with him, she tells me Murphy will *Sit* and stare at a door the whole time. I find that hard to believe but apparently he won't take his eyes off me when I'm leaving and then waits for me to return. When I am alone with him, I watch Murphy listening intently to sounds and walk around anxiously to track where my wife is (normally a room upstairs) between playing a game of Rugby that I posted about (he wrestles a soft toy past me, and then goes back the other way, and playfully growls the whole time). When he was about 10wks old I fashioned a toy for him that I had a hunch he might like (its a rubber ball on a looped string) and he uses every day to perform an act that looks like self-flagellation, and he clearly enjoys that too because he is growling and jumping and just playing ball by himself.


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## ArkansasGold (Dec 7, 2017)

Dog training is as much about teaching dogs what not to do as it is about what to do. I didn’t need to give my younger dog a replacement behavior to teach her not to counter surf. I’m trying not to make assumptions here, but based on your comments in this thread, you’re getting bombarded with the purely positive training agenda. I’ve been there and got totally stuck in my first dog’s training because the positive only method didn’t give me an option to actually correct bad behavior.

My actual advice to you here is to physically correct him when he counter surfs or does other undesirable behaviors. Contrary to what the purely positive people say, you are not going to damage him with a physical correction. The moment his front feet leave the ground, you need to grab him by the loose skin on the back of his neck with a simultaneous “NO!” in a stern, deep voice and set his feet back on the ground so that he is sitting. It sounds rough, but it won’t hurt him. Hopefully it will scare him though and he will learn quickly that countersurfing = scary dad, not nice dad.

I do not think you should be walking a four month old puppy around the table with food on it as this could actually be making it worse. You are building up anticipation and quite literally teasing him by doing this. Our pups were not allowed to be out while we were eating until they were quite older. Sometimes we would start eating with them out, but the moment the begging or attempted surfing began, they got put either in a kennel or in the mud room. They can both be trusted not to steal food - even if it’s left unattended (not indefinitely, obviously) - because they know that our food is ours, not theirs.

I also think that you and your breeder have had a miscommunication on the 6 month deadline. No puppy is perfectly trained by 6 months, but they should be fairly well socialized by then. By socialized, I mean shown different aspects of human society and taught the expectations for how they should behave in those situations. They do not need to be perfect, they just need to know what is expected of them. This means walking through a market without stealing food - or if they do attempt to steal food, they are swiftly corrected. This means walking through a crowded area on a very short leash so that they physically cannot greet every person and/or dog that they meet.

I hope this has been helpful. One of the largest misconceptions in all of dog training is that any type of physical correction will break their souls. This is absolutely not true. I am not saying to hit him - never that, but grabbing him by the ruff is speaking his language and it does not hurt. He may protest and make it seem like it hurts, but I promise that it doesn’t. You can do this for biting too.


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## Sweet Girl (Jun 10, 2010)

Howler said:


> My suggestion is that you stop making assumptions about things you cannot see. In the picnic event you are recounting he was playing fetch in a dog park; where else is he supposed to run? This thread is not about that incident. With the pork incident his leash was being held by the owner of the pork. This thread is also not about that incident.


I guess this is why. It's the first line of your post in this thread.


Howler said:


> *I asked a top trainer how to stop my puppy from ruining the picnics of strangers,* and his response was that we cannot stop that behaviour but we can manage it by stimulating the dog in more energetic ways.


If your dog was in a fenced dog park, he shouldn't have had access to people picnicking. You can understand my confusion, no? 

I do think you are making things way too hard - for both yourself and your dog. But you seem pretty dug in with your methods (ie. walking your dog around a table where there is food, doing nothing but encouraging frustration and temptation), so I'm just going to wish you luck. I do hope you do find a good trainer who will help you discover a different, more effective way of training your pup. You've had a lot of good and clear advice on this forum, in various threads, from people who have trained dogs for decades with great success. I wish you would take some of the advice as it is being offered. No one here wants your puppy to wind up being a disaster or returned to the breeder or worse, surrendered. People are trying to help.


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## ceegee (Mar 26, 2015)

Howler said:


> (...) In contrast the top trainer I mentioned in another thread suggested wobble boards and such like, but he first needs Murphy to pass his assessment, and I have no idea how to prepare Murphy for that - the closest Murphy has come to agility equipment is squeezing between dining chairs to collect stray kibble! How old should a puppy be before trying out agility? I was told the assessment is looking at the dog's interactions and the equipment I used - what do you think that assessment might be? Can an untrained dog with a novice owner even pass such an assessment? (...) To be honest I am confused by the whole agility thing when we want a therapy dog - are the two complementary?


An assessment for what? Agility? Any dog can learn to do agility. Some dogs are more confident than others, and the way you would train a confident dog is not the same way that you would train a less confident dog. Some are more suited to it than others; for example, it's not an ideal activity for very big or very heavy dogs. A dog can start agility at any age. My first agility dog was a rescue that started her training when she was about 18 months old. My last two have been puppies, and I started them both at 8 weeks of age, with foundation games including wobble boards, planks on the ground, 2-on 2-off boxes, send-aways, following, changing hands, etc. With pups, I don't start with actual equipment (other than tunnels) until they are 6 to 8 months of age. Weave poles are not taught at all until the dog is over 12 months of age. I don't really know what your trainer would mean by "assessment". My two agility goldens have been at opposite ends of the scale in terms of personality: one was a bulldozer, the other is a careful thinker. Both won national championships.

My suggestion of agility was only that: a suggestion. From your posts, it sounds like you have a dog who needs a job, and agility is something that goldens generally enjoy. But it's not the only possibility, and it's certainly not incompatible with therapy work. My best friend has two Portuguese water dogs that do agility, dock diving, frisbee, scent detection and competitive obedience, and are also certified, registered therapy dogs - she visits old folks' homes with them. I would like to do therapy work with Duster, but he's not suited to it. He's not calm enough with people.



Howler said:


> In fact, the breeder encouraged us to abandon the training that was being provided because that training was not consistent with the type of training she uses for her GRs. She encourages training, but only good training. Furthermore, our breeder highlighted the first six months are crucial for training and after that it is game over. Most responses here are telling me to relax and wait years, but hopefully you can appreciate why I would be feeling anxious about the fast approaching six month deadline. (...) I sense you feel we are "high pressure parents" and we should just let Murphy develop at a slower pace. I understand, but please consider the expectations set by our breeder and that 6 month window.


Honestly, I think this (the sentence highlighted in red) may be the root of your problems. It's simply not true. I'd go so far as to say it's ridiculous. It is NOT "game over" after six months. There is no deadline. Dogs don't stop learning when they're six months old. They're nowhere near mature at that age, and there are lots of things they simply can't learn until they're older. I have no idea why someone would tell you this. It's not only misleading, it's dumb and potentially damaging.

Look. The requirements for therapy dogs are fairly straightforward. Basically you need a steady, confident, outgoing dog that's at least a year old and has a qualification equal to the Canine Good Citizen, which is a very basic obedience title. It's not rocket science. I'm not sure what the British requirements are, but this link (Can Your Dog Be A Therapy Dog? - Ontario SPCA Blog) describes the Canadian requirements well, and I assume they are similar. If you told your breeder you wanted a pup that could become a therapy dog, her job was to make sure you got a steady, confident, outgoing puppy. After that, it's just a question of socializing him to different life situations and all kinds of people, and providing fairly basic training.

The best therapy dog I know was rescued from a shelter when it was 2 years of age. It was a completely untrained stray. The person who adopted it chose it for what she describes as its "bombproof" personality. Not only did it become a great hospital therapy dog, it also competes successfully in agility and other sports. I could give you dozens of other, similar stories of dogs that didn't begin their training until well past the so-called six-month deadline and went on to be successful in a variety of fields. Your breeder has misled you.

From your posts it's clear that you love your dog and are invested in making sure he's successful. So relax! There's no deadline for what you're trying to achieve, and you might actually harm your cause if you push to achieve it too quickly. It's like forcing a 10-year-old kid to take GCSEs: he wouldn't have the mental maturity to deal with the stress, or the personal maturity to internalize and apply the learning. Let your pup be a pup, enjoy him, keep him under control, do basic training suited to his age, and build your relationship with him. Once he learns to trust you and look to you for guidance in unknown situations, the rest will be easy.


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

Sweet Girl said:


> I do hope you do find a good trainer who will help you discover a different, more effective way of training your pup ... No one here wants your puppy to wind up being a disaster or returned to the breeder or worse, surrendered.


There are some points we 100% agree on! 

If you are right about him having plenty of time then there is no risk of him leaving. He is just having fun and is a few weeks behind the leaders on his manners.



Sweet Girl said:


> I wish you would take some of the advice as it is being offered.


I absolutely do. If I am challenging it is because the www is full of alternative views, and offline there is an even wider set of views, so I am presented with choices and I want to be sure.

As a final piece of disclosure - Brexit and Pandemic conditions have increased my travel and Murphy sleeps a lot in the car, which may be why he rarely settles at home. If there was an assessment for travelling he would be a star.


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## mylissyk (Feb 25, 2007)

Howler said:


> @mylissyk I do not have time to waste posting about details that are going well.
> 
> I am sensing an odious mentality in this forum where posters are complaining about a person who is seeking help while at the same time assuming that is nothing is going well. Many things about Murphy are perfect, and some things I posted about over the months were corrected at home _after_ we sacked his first trainer.
> 
> ...


If all you post about are the problems, then we have no reason to think there are successes. What you are sensing in attitude here is our frustration that you come here asking for "help", then refuse the advice offered and are adamant it won't work. 

You don't just wait for opportunities to reward "settle", you teach it, have practice sessions, deliberately put him in his "settle" spot or mat, and also practice asking him to "go to" his settle mat, and reward for longer and longer periods of time he stays there, even if it's just 30 seconds longer than the time before. It's ok if he is alert with his head up, as long as he stays on the mat. 

Stop walking him around the table while there is food. You are only making him want it more. 

The training window does NOT close at 6 months for a dog. Yes, have a good start on training by six months but it is most definitely not game over. The years we all keep saying it takes is years of CONTINUING training. 

If your breeder is available to help with training, absolutely take advantage of that. They actually know how to train your puppy because they own the dogs he came from, who are most probably very much like him in temperament.


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## mylissyk (Feb 25, 2007)

FYI, he does not need to prepared for an assessment for agility beforehand. Puppy agility is all fun and seeing what they are willing to do initially and building on that. Just go and have fun. You don't need to do anything to get ready for the "assessment".


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## CCoopz (Jun 2, 2020)

Howler said:


> I appreciate your inputs, and you might be right, but I need to try because my wife has lost patience. If there is a way to get him to perceive food differently then I need to discover it for his sake.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hi, 

I note your in the U.K.
I would try contacting your regional golden retriever club and asking for recommendations for trainers that use positive techniques. There might even be an ethical golden retriever breeder associated with the club that is a trainer too and understands the sensitive golden temperament and breed traits. 
Have you gone back to the breeder to ask for trainer recommendations?

We adopted Teddy when he was 18 months via our regional GR club. We had some problems we worked through. We had the picnic issue! I started managing the issue eg putting him on the lead when I spied a picnic or was in an area where there was a probability of one. 

However, there will always be one incident where I had no sympathy for the nasty women after Ted helped himself to a sandwich. I live in Bournemouth and avoid even the dog beach sections of the beach in high summer. Even parts of the river at busy times are no go with people picnicking so fare enough. So I often take Teddy to the harbour, where all locals know you take your dog in the summer to cool off and avoid conflict with humans. But we get a lot of clueless inconsiderate visitors. And this lady was sat there on the craggy muddy harbour with her picnic laid out like a tapas bar! Expecting all these dogs to ignore her meaty morsels!

Anyway, I taught Ted the leave command with toys and food. Slowly and surely in the garden. As he never had any problem with food in the house. And now he can walk off lead in areas where people are eating outside cafes on riverside/cliff top benches with their sandwiches and fish and chips. But I still wouldn’t trust Teddy with picnics on the ground. I watch Teddy’s body language and when I noticed he is a bit interested in the ‘food’ by scenting the air I just repeat 2 or 3 times ‘leave’ and he trots on by.

Almost18 months later, in August, Teddy at nearly 3 has come a long way. Mainly doing the training myself, using tips from the forum. Did go to a 6 weeks positive rewards based techniques basic class for adolescent dogs. Which was great as due to being last summer in the pandemic it was only me & Teddy and one other owner and their dog.

But I’ve started to look into gun dog training for pets not actual working dogs. As well as scent work training. I think Ted has aptitude for the latter not the former. I practice, wait and find commands through scent games in the garden. Great mental stimulation too. 

I wonder whether you should look into puppy/adolescent training for gun dog breed pet dogs. As my reading on such trainers websites they explain they train you to work with the breeds traits. Whilst also training obedience, recall, scent work, retrieving, how to leave things but all through the gun dog type scenarios.

Maybe worth a try? Good luck, all your caring, patience and good work will pay off.


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## cwag (Apr 25, 2017)

ArkansasGold said:


> Dog training is as much about teaching dogs what not to do as it is about what to do. I didn’t need to give my younger dog a replacement behavior to teach her not to counter surf. I’m trying not to make assumptions here, but based on your comments in this thread, you’re getting bombarded with the purely positive training agenda. I’ve been there and got totally stuck in my first dog’s training because the positive only method didn’t give me an option to actually correct bad behavior.
> 
> My actual advice to you here is to physically correct him when he counter surfs or does other undesirable behaviors. Contrary to what the purely positive people say, you are not going to damage him with a physical correction. The moment his front feet leave the ground, you need to grab him by the loose skin on the back of his neck with a simultaneous “NO!” in a stern, deep voice and set his feet back on the ground so that he is sitting. It sounds rough, but it won’t hurt him. Hopefully it will scare him though and he will learn quickly that countersurfing = scary dad, not nice dad.
> 
> ...


I totally agree with this! I have raised 3 Golden Retrievers without a single incident of counter surfing or grabbing food but when they are little I watch them like a hawk to be sure they never get the chance to get something. The first time they look at a plate with food on a table or jump on the counter I fairly loudly say ah ah down. If they try again I slap my open plan on the counter hard enough to scare them and say/maybe yell "down". It is one of the few things I use negative discipline on but it is a "line in the sand" thing to me. I want to use my counters for prepping and even storing food. I really haven't had to do much else. It's a continual watch and admonish as soon as I see them even thinking about helping themselves. With all 3 adult dogs we could set a plate of food on a side table or coffee table and leave the room for a minute or two without it being bothered. Unfortunately you've missed the prevention step but you can still train Murphy by watching closely and intervening as ArkansasGold described if he starts to jump or even when you see he is thinking about it. We also remove puppies from the room at meal time until they have learned to settle in a designated spot and stay there. 
Also I don't think I have ever seen a fully trained 6 month old puppy. They can learn throughout their lives. I would definitely lighten up on the long training sessions and feeling like he has to learn everything immediately and think instead about what you want him to do instead of the bad behavior and train that. If he's jumping train him to sit, if he's at the table train him to go to another spot to wait while you eat. Unless you want to march around the table while you wife eats train him what you prefer he do and crate him until he is able to learn it.


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

That is interesting, @cwag. How do you stop your dogs taking a look to satisfy their own curiosity?

I have not yet directly disciplined Murphy's counter surfing. I have made clear "No" when he is up and "Yes" when he is down. I have also been rewarding Murphy just for having his front legs on the floor, and then not rewarding him when he puts his paws on the counter, but that uses a lot of food and is unsustainable. In either case he is just putting his head over the edge and looking around, so it's currently all about where he puts his paws, rather than anything he takes.

When I enter the kitchen I often discover him standing upright, his paws on a counter, and his head looking around.


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

CCoopz said:


> I live in Bournemouth..


Wonderful part of the world. You could say I am an Old Bournemouthian 



CCoopz said:


> I would try contacting your regional golden retriever club..


I trawled the list of KC approved trainers. Time will tell, but I have high hopes right now. I'll also look into the GR society, which the breeder also mentioned, but set expectations low on the basis that it is hard to gain access.



CCoopz said:


> I wonder whether you should look into puppy/adolescent training for gun dog breed pet dogs.


I'll look into it. From what I have seen Murphy's nose is not as gifted as Teddy's; poor Murphy can pass right over kibble when sniffing. If Murphy has a strength my guess is that it is more along the lines of fixation, and I say that because I used to have a cat and Murphy shares that cat's pounce stance. I watch him focus on targets (visible and audible, insects etc.) and he crouches for long time in silence before he makes a move. He has so far been a very quiet dog; when other dogs bark he quietly walks over to them with his ears leaning forward.

We have a pointing thing going on. I point with my finger and he trusts there is food in that direction. I use my finger to direct him through waypoints of treats. He sometimes seems to point back with his knee, at things that are disturbing him, such as a cabinet door (when I open the door for him he sniffs around inside). Maybe he has an ability to point and to retrieve, but on the other hand maybe I'm imagining there is any kind of thought or communication - neither of us seem to have a clue what the significance of the door is!


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## Coastal Pup (Jan 30, 2021)

Howler said:


> That is interesting, @cwag. How do you stop your dogs taking a look to satisfy their own curiosity?
> 
> I have not yet directly disciplined Murphy's counter surfing. I have made clear "No" when he is up and "Yes" when he is down. I have also been rewarding Murphy just for having his front legs on the floor, and then not rewarding him when he puts his paws on the counter, but that uses a lot of food and is unsustainable. In either case he is just putting his head over the edge and looking around, so it's currently all about where he puts his paws, rather than anything he takes.
> 
> When I enter the kitchen I often discover him standing upright, his paws on a counter, and his head looking around.


my guy Beckett is just a bit older than Murphy, and he recently discovered tabletops and counters. I try to be more positive with my training but like cwag and ArkansasGold said, a little correction or negative discipline won’t kill them. For us we put 3 small (about the size of grapes) rocks into an empty aluminum can, and when Beckett jumped up to the counter, the can got a quick rattle and an Off command. It’s enough to startle him, but that’s about it. He recovers quickly.
After the first rattle, Beckett didn’t know why/where the rattle came from, so he was ready to try the counter again to investigate-this time we rattled it right as he was getting ready to jump up, and it startled him enough to put the brakes on his jump, and I was able to put him into a Sit instead. I think he tried it once more the next day, but he hadn’t attempted to get onto the counter or table since then.

That said, this obviously only works if you are right nearby to see them anticipating a jump up. Usually I keep Beckett in his crate or expen if I’m not in the kitchen with him so that he doesn’t get any ideas in his head. A big part of my training is setting Beckett up for success, so I don’t give him too much freedom until he’s earned it. Is there a way to keep Murphy in a crate or otherwise away from the counter if you are not directly supervising him so he doesn’t get tempted to jump up?


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## Coastal Pup (Jan 30, 2021)

Add note: I saw someone here mention once that if you teach your dog Speak and Quiet commands, sometimes they bark less because they’re rewarded for the times they are quiet, and they know that barks are only acceptable when asked. What about teaching Murphy a Paws Up command to go with the Off command? He may learn that being up on 2 legs is only acceptable when invited. Beckett and I practice Paws Up on my lap, chairs, taller boxes, etc. Can’t say that it’s made any difference in counter surfing (the can of rocks pretty much did the trick for that) but he doesn’t try to jump up on chairs or furniture before looking up at me to be invited.


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

Coastal Pup said:


> Is there a way to keep Murphy in a crate or otherwise away from the counter if you are not directly supervising him so he doesn’t get tempted to jump up?


Murphy used to have a crate, but this news story closely resembles what happened to Murphy during a drive:









Crews rescue Weston dog who got teeth hooked on crate’s bars


WESTON, FLA. (WSVN) - - A Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue crew rescued a dog who got its teeth hooked on its metal crate inside a...




wsvn.com





First there was horrid screaming from Murphy, and then horrid screaming from my wife! I remember the words "_Pull over, pull over, pull over.._" It happened while I was driving and I could not see or make sense of the noises. I looked in the mirror and saw Murphy hanging on the inside of the crate all twisted and screaming. I immediately pulled over and accidentally bumped a curb. Apparently when a dog's teeth/jaw get trapped in crate bars, the bars need to be cut, but by chance my clumsy bump released Murphy! In either case he now has an absolute fear of crate bars, and we probably do too, so we all stopped using it.


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## diane0905 (Aug 20, 2010)

If I thought it was over at six months, Logan would never have become the dog he is becoming today (he's 18 months.) We are not done, but the improvements are coming in leaps and bounds now due to all the earlier training I've done. 

Keep working at it and give him boundaries. Don't give your dog the opportunity to get to people's food when they are picnicking. It's rude and every single time you put him in a situation where he can get to food he shouldn't get, you are reinforcing the behavior.

I also agree with what was said earlier about positive only training. It doesn't mean you have to be mean or anything, but you need your dog to know without a doubt what is acceptable and what isn't.


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## Coastal Pup (Jan 30, 2021)

Howler said:


> Murphy used to have a crate, but this news story closely resembles what happened to Murphy during a drive:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh I know that noise! Beckett had a similar incident when he was about 10 weeks old, he got his lower jaw stuck between the rungs, and and I hope to never hear that noise again in my life. He did show some aversion to the crate afterwards (he actually got stuck and immediately unstuck himself a day after the first time), but we did a lot of positive associations in the crate and he recovered. Dogs are resilient.
Do you have an expen or baby gates that you can use to block off the kitchen if you don’t use a crate? Or if you can reassociate the crate as being a positive place for Murphy you can really use it to your advantage for training.


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## cwag (Apr 25, 2017)

Howler said:


> That is interesting, @cwag. How do you stop your dogs taking a look to satisfy their own curiosity?
> 
> When I enter the kitchen I often discover him standing upright, his paws on a counter, and his head looking around.


There's never any reason for curiosity about what's on the counter. It's all mine, never his, no reason for him to be looking up there. Same is true for what's on the table. There's nothing that belongs to him ever put on the table so no reason to look. I guess a quick passing glance might be ignored but any real interest in what's on a table or counter gets an ah ah and I distract him. 
I would not let Murphy in the kitchen at all if you are not with him. If you can't put him in a crate, baby gate him into one room when no one is watching. I also wonder if maybe you are trying to teach him too many things too fast. Usually with a new puppy we start with potty training, sit, and no biting plus walking on a leash. After a week or so, if he's settling into doing those things well we move on to come when called as a game, look at me, lie down, sit nicely for food bowl. Just a series of little steps that lead to better behavior. The no counter surfing no getting stuff off the table comes when they are getting a little taller. The room the puppy is stays in is pretty much cleared out of anything down low that the puppy shouldn't have and puppy's toys. Even then someone is always watching and if no one can watch puppy is crated. I think they learn fairly early on that some things belong to the humans and some things are for them to chew or play with. Then over time they gain a little more freedom.


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

cwag said:


> usually with a new puppy we start with potty training, sit, and no biting plus walking on a leash. After a week or so, if he's settling into doing those things well we move on to come when called as a game, look at me, lie down, sit nicely for food bowl. Just a series of little steps that lead to better behavior. The no counter surfing no getting stuff off the table comes when they are getting a little taller.


Actually, the order in which I tackled issues was almost the same.

Potty
Sit
Sit nicely for food (he was jumping for food when he arrived with us)
Walk on a leash
What actually tripped us up was introducing the Puppy School syllabus when he was 8 weeks old because that included other things that Murphy was not ready for, in particular Tug, and we were then fire-fighting the side-effects for ~2 months. By the time we regained control of his Biting & Tugging he was already tall and poking his head above tables.

He is a big dog now, not by GR standards, but in the wider scheme of things he is bigger than most city dogs. Some strangers are already scared of him. I need to stop dwelling on the past and fix-forward;



cwag said:


> There's never any reason for curiosity about what's on the counter. It's all mine, never his, no reason for him to be looking up there. Same is true for what's on the table. There's nothing that belongs to him ever put on the table so no reason to look. I guess a quick passing glance might be ignored but any real interest in what's on a table or counter gets an ah ah and I distract him.


That is what I am currently doing, except I use the words "No" and "Back". No is an odd one but it might actually have come to mean Freeze. Back means to step backwards.


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## Ffcmm (May 4, 2016)

Howler said:


> I have made clear "No" when he is up and "Yes" when he is down. I have also been rewarding Murphy just for having his front legs on the floor, and then not rewarding him when he puts his paws on the counter, but that uses a lot of food and is unsustainable. In either case he is just putting his head over the edge and looking around, so it's currently all about where he puts his paws, rather than anything he takes.
> 
> When I enter the kitchen I often discover him standing upright, his paws on a counter, and his head looking around.


I'd scale back on the complexity of this to be honest.

Murphy's brain:

Food on the table is mine, what I can reach is mine
putting front legs on the table, and then back down= food from human!
conclusion=table= source of food regardless of on it or off it=just be near the table and there will be food.
He is not understanding the concept of where his paws are and should be. he is just associating the table with food on or around it.

There is no need to parade him around the table as well, you are just tempting him.

I was lucky with my older girl lily she never counter surfed a day in her life. Monty my younger boy had a day of counter surfing and I nipped it in the bud on that day itself. When he was around 7 months I had prepped their food, left it on the table and went to wash my hands. I heard a clang and returned back to a toppled bowl and Monty happily lapping up his dinner prematurely. No point with any correction as he already almost finished his meal and had rewarded himself for his counter surfing efforts. After telling him no and cleaning up I set up a trap. I left some tasty treats right at the edge of the table and left the room. Got myself a wad of newspaper and waited. He took the bait and stood up to get it right after I left and I swiftly returned, smacked the wad of paper against a wall and said 'NO' really loudly. he NEVER counter surfed again after that. [as harsh as this sounds he is fine, he has no aversion to newspaper or anything it was just a one time loud shock he needed to associate that its not acceptable in my household.]

All my dogs know there place during human dinner time and settle there calmly while we eat.

For picnics like the rest have already mentioned it can be too much temptation even for a very well trained adult dog. he should not be playing fetch in an area where people are picnicking. keep him on lead.


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

Ffcmm said:


> I left some tasty treats right at the edge of the table and left the room. Got myself a wad of newspaper and waited. He took the bait and stood up to get it right after I left and I swiftly returned, smacked the wad of paper against a wall and said 'NO' really loudly. he NEVER counter surfed again after that.


Whoa! 



Ffcmm said:


> putting front legs on the table, and then back down= food from human!


He won't get that food. I count that as paws on table = no treat and then I'll leave with a coffee or whatever. If I do not see paws on the table then he gets a treat, but of course it is only what I see and he may take advantage of what I cannot see.

This approach is unsustainable because it dispenses treats for doing nothing, but it is also a technique taken by the trainer that I did not go back to (she taught this for training Settle). If he paws the table again today I'll try that big bang solution above.


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## StarBright (Nov 11, 2015)

Howler said:


> I asked a top trainer how to stop my puppy from ruining the picnics of strangers, and his response was that we cannot stop that behaviour but we can manage it by stimulating the dog in more energetic ways. Seriously?!
> 
> The article attached describes how to use "Look At That" to stop a dog reacting negatively to other dogs. The training uses neutral objects to teach the game, then replaces the neutral objects with the problem target so that your dog reacts to seeing the target by initiating the "Look At That" game. Should the same training work to stop a dog reacting negatively to food?


I did not open your attachment. But I think it also works to prevent things like grabbing food or chasing prey. I taught my puppy the “Look at that” game. I mostly used it because of Covid and not having her well socialized, she can be a bit reactive. Sometimes barking at things that’s she’s unsure of that make her fearful. So, we play the game. On a walk, I see something that she might react to fearfully and bark, so I point to it saying “look at that”. She has learned that means to look and then look back at me to be rewarded with a treat. Giving her a positive feeling about something that would potentially be scary for her. I also play the game to teach her not to chase things like rabbits, birds, cats, etc on our walks. That way she gets to look at the thing that normally she wants to chase, but instead of chasing she looks back at me and is rewarded with a yummy treat. Then I also add words like “leave it” and the word “yes” as she looks back to me and is then given a reward. And “on by” meaning not to chase or grab something tempting we are walking past, then “yes” and reward as she looks to me instead of grabbing food or trying to chase after something. So the “look at that” game is the start to teaching them to look to you first and not just react to whatever stimulating thing they see.


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

Coastal Pup said:


> I saw someone here mention once that if you teach your dog Speak and Quiet commands, sometimes they bark less because they’re rewarded for the times they are quiet, and they know that barks are only acceptable when asked.


Murphy is incredibly quiet. Yesterday he met the niece of a GR breeder who commented on him being oddly quiet and very well behaved. He has also met the neighbours puppy who barks a lot, and Murphy reciprocates with every action except barking. Hopefully the barking is not a bad influence.

When he came to us he barked for food, but I stopped that. I was trying to teach him to bark in exchange for opening the door for potty, so each and every time he barked (for anything at all) I would stop what I was doing and open the back door. He stopped barking because barking repeatedly delayed his meals. Yesterday he disappeared because his leash became trapped in our garden. I noticed he was not with me, turned around, and he was silently looking at me and waiting for me to notice his predicament. He also greets strangers silently. He is the quietest dog I, or anyone else it seems, have ever met. He barks for two explicit reasons: To summon me into the garden when there is scary new sound (e.g. the neighbour mowing their lawn) or for telling me to FO (e.g. when I have a hair dryer turned on - although that example is improving). FO is interesting because it is a _generalisation_, which is something we are told dogs do not do.

Anyway, that is not today's update. Today's update is that his counter surfing days are numbered 

Yesterday he lay silently and waited for me to finish my cooking and my eating. However, what changed is that I caved because I started giving him offcuts or treats when I am done. He is also responding quickly to Back when he puts his paw on a table or surface, which is my reused cue for him to step backwards, and stepping backwards has the right outcome. Overall he is now spending almost no time counters. I don't want to ban it outright though because I foresee a day when reaching onto a counter will be useful, such as helping me find my car keys when I have misplaced them 

Also yesterday my wife insisted on showering him on his leash using the garden hose. He hated that, but it succeeded with unhappy Murphy silently hugging me while my wife showered him. Strangely, this gives me confidence that he might actually do the Look At That with me when he is stressed. Today I'm going to test my hope with the dilemma presented by a new _dog lover_'s human food. Wish me luck..


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## jomiel (Feb 15, 2019)

We had a lot of trouble with counter surfing when Tomo was young and tall enough to reach them. He actually stole a raw pork chop that was left at the very back of the kitchen counter to come up to temperature! We had our trainer come out to the house to address this issue specifically:

Set up:

First, all counters and tables and any place reachable have to clear of food, including sealed boxes/canisters.
If we cannot supervise and provide training, then he'll have to be placed in a place where he cannot self-reinforce. This means either gated, in a play pen, or leashed somewhere that's far enough away (she suggested we install a I-shaped attachment to a corner of the dining area). He will have food, chews, or other safe enrichment activities to keep him occupied.

Training steps:

With a clear counter/table, approach the counter, then treat Tomo in his place (from the previous bullet).
Then tap the counter or pretend we are working there, and treat.
After a few sessions of the above, then have empty plates/mugs there, and pretend we're eating/drinking from it, then treat Tomo in his place.
Then the counter/table is clear again, and we walk Tomo on a short leash past the counter. "Yes" and treat for walking past without looking at it. May need to assist by holding a treat and lure him past the counter, or use your leash to guide him away and prevent him from putting paws up.
When he can do that, then short leash with him standing by nicely while we're at the counter.
Then move empty plates and mugs around while he's on the short leash.
Then work again on having him in his place and reinforce heavily for it. In our instance, we leashed him to his bed area in the corner of the dining room, and we'll walk around and drop treats for him staying on the bed/mat. Sit down at the dining table for a brief second, get up and treat. Then sit down and toss treats from the chair. Then a bag of treats every few seconds while we're drinking coffee. Then a bag of treats while we're eating dinner, etc etc.

He is now 2 years old, and we've been lax about leaving food on the counters. The other day I cooked short ribs for dinner, plated them and put them on the table. Then I was called away to another room, while Tomo was lying next to the dinner table. I came back a few minutes later and he was still laying there quietly. I realized that the ribs were super tempting and he was SUCH a good boy, and I gave him a treat jackpot for that.

So there's hope, it's always learning for me that I need to make the bar low so the dog can be successful, do a variety of situations as they don't generalize well, being patient, and keep rewarding good behavior. The most simple thing to avoiding bad behavior is to teach a good behavior that is incompatible with bad behaviors -- it is simple, but hard to do and requires so much practice


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## Howler (Feb 4, 2021)

Thanks, I'll try and I suspect using empty plates is a particularly good tip!

Here is the owed update on my last post:



Howler said:


> Yesterday he lay silently and waited for me to finish my cooking and my eating. However, what changed is that I caved because I started giving him offcuts or treats when I am done ... Today I'm going to test my hope with the dilemma presented by a new _dog lover_'s human food. Wish me luck..


He was good most of the time. He looked onto the table at the start, but ignored the food (maybe he didn't recognise it), and didn't try to take anything _until_ people left their empty plates. For a few hours we received compliments about what a good boy he is, laying under the table and so on. However, when they walked away from the table it was "his turn" and he was bold/insistent about it. So it seems he understands time..


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