How to Fix Your Dog's Begging
Your dog has a begging habit and it’s driving you nuts. Or maybe your puppy isn’t begging yet and you want to keep it that way.
Before we talk about how to fix this, let me ask a question: what does begging look like to you?
What Behaviors Aren’t Okay?
Is this Begging?
In other words, which behaviors grind your gears and make you cry, “cut it out! Quit begging!”?
Here’s my list:
Dog’s face in my plate
Dog’s nose touching the table
Dog’s head on the table
Dog crawling over or on me to do any of the above
Dog barking at me
Dog bopping, pawing or shoving me
I AM okay with the dog watching me.
A Fresh Perspective
Is that begging? Maybe, but here’s the thing: I don’t think it’s fair to expect the dog to NOT be interested in food. He’s a dog. Your food smells good. He’s going to want it. Shoot, I might want it.
Instead of attempting to turn off the appetite, I teach the dog that he can eat if he stays back — out of my bubble and off my plate. Rather than fight his hunger, I leverage it.
The Answer: More Feeding, Not Less
First, begin rewarding your dog with a small treat any time you see him volunteer to lie down throughout the day. He’ll learn that you pay him to lie down: lying down is how he gets to eat.
Next, during meal times, be quick to reward with a treat for anything that’s NOT getting in your bubble. You might start by rewarding your dog for standing two feet back instead of sniffing the table. Or for sitting on the floor instead of crawling on you.
PRO TIP: toss the treat away from yourself, the table, and your plate so he has to move away to get the reward.
Gradually require increasingly “better manners” until your dog must lie down to get his treat (switch to dropping the treat by his paws at this point).
In the meantime, use prevention: put his dinner in a puzzle toy and feed while you’re eating so he’s occupied OR, tether him to a heavy piece of furniture so he cannot reach the table.
Just like humans, when it comes to mealtime manners, we’re not asking them to stop being hungry. We are asking them to wait to be served, use their silverware, eat from what’s theirs and not grab (uninvited) from someone else’s plate. They can eat. But there are some ground rules.