stealing food

[Frankie's Mommy]

Hi all!!! Wondering if anyone else has the problems with their little one stealing human food. I have three small children and Frankie is constantly stealing whole bagels, pizza, or anything out of their hands. As of yesterday, he actually is long enough to jump on the dining room table chair and help himself to anything. Any ideas on how to deter this behavior. I am just worried about Frankie's well being ( eating the wrong things and too much of them). No matter how many times I repeatedly tell him to get down, he will try to divebomb the kids again. They are not fast enough to get the food away from them. Thanks for any help you can offer. Erica

[Mandy]

Tough one! Our guys know "wait." Any time they get treats, they must "wait" while they are getting the treats...this involves not taking the treat until we say that they can....they are pretty good about this, and you can hold a treat right above their noses. Henry is more patient than Jake. Jake sits there with this look as if "a treat! Oh, I want that so badly....but if I take it then I won't get more...just a few more seconds and she'll give it to me....oh, I can't wait...yes I can...no I can't....PLEASE give me the treat!"

We never leave food where they can get to it..i.e. nothing on the coffee table and such. We also have a "puppies don't go on tables" rule. They know this...but will try to find ways around it. For example, I have seen Jake climb to the tip of the sofa and stretch as far as he possibly can to try and drink out of a glass.

One day, Jake jumped onto one of the dining room chairs. I told him to get off of the chair...so he did, by jumping onto the next chair....we did this all around the table....until he had been on every chair and he couldn't find a way around it. All of our dinding chairs are always pushed in, so he wasn't able to sneak up to the table....he was just running around the table base on top of the chair seats.

These are ornery little guys..it's part of what makes them so special. My best suggestion would be to teach him "wait." That way he won't be grabbing at food. It took Henry all of about 10 minutes to learn wait (with a few goodies). Jakey took about 30 minutes, because he REALLY wante dthose treats. The boys also know "share" and "turns." Turns are very important at our house, and you had better believe that they keep track of whose turn it is for the next carrot or treat.....if I don't keep the turns in order....I get the L@@K and whines.

This probably didn't help you much, huh?

[Krista]

Wait and "leave it" are great commands, but since it it is the kids food he is taking, I'd suggest babygating him in another room or crating him while the kids are eating.

Maybe give him a special chewy to gnaw on to keep him busy.

My mini, Rudy, cannot reach food on the coffee table, but Roscoe can, so we cannot leave food unattended on it. Though, most of the time he is pretty good, but every once in a while, the lure of people food gets to be too much for him and he ignores the command.

You should not feel bad if you have to separate him from eating kids. It is better for him than eating junk food.

[Frankie's Mommy]

He is good at waiting for treats. And he won't take it out of my hands, I have to give it to him. But he's only 5 months old and hasn't gone through obedience yet ( this spring). Maybe that will help. He just gets way too much candy and junk because my children have trouble with the table only rule. Maybe I should work on that problem!!!! lol. I was just wondering if there was a specific discipline that anyone has done that will work to make him listen to my kids. He knows that he can just snag and run with whatever is in their hands and they can't do anything about it. Saying," bad boy" to him afterwards, obviously, has ill effects.

[Mandy]

Can you do some basic obedience work at home and have the kids help? Learning wait from you is one thing.....he needs to know that wait is the same whether you say it or if the kids say it....it's harder for them to look at kids as being over them. Both dachsies and kids look at you as the mommy...so dachsies must be equal to kids, right? The kids have to do what you say...and the dachsie has to do what you say....so dachsies and kids are equal, right?

So, something needs to be done to show that kids have some authority over little dachsies...basically, re-establishing the pack order, involving all adults, kids, and dachsies.....

He's still young, too...he will gain maturity as he gets older.....http://dachsie.org/ubb/smilies/smile.gif I hope. Henry has gotten more mature....but we're still waiting on Jakey....

[pkmiddler]

Having 2 kids with German Shepherds and then my 2 year old Grand Daughter moving in with the Doxies who were all older 5,6,and 7 years and Never really being around a toddler was all new.So we re-trained them.None of my dogs will steal from the tables so we did the if it hits the floor it is the dogs training.We started by letting Ariel try to give them food and us my daughter included saying NO!!! Then if we said OK they could take it from Ariel's hand it worked fine.My daughter is now training her own puppy he is 4 months old the same way since her youngest is 1 1/2.As far as the table stealing I can put a STEAK dinner on the coffee table and leave the room.I used the T.V. guide for that training.We have a bar I go behinde it with the plate on the coffee table and wait anyone makes a move for it and gets up with feet on the coffee table I yell NO!!!! and throw the T.V. guide so it flaps not hitting them it works ask anyone who knows my dogs a frend,judge and breeder in CA calls it Kaye's "know better training" she says my dogs "Know Better".

[Frankie's Mommy]

I'm definitely going to try to re-establish the pack order. That sounds like a great idea using the kids to teach him some obedience. I haven't wholeheartedly tried training him myself yet. He's too hyper and just wants to play. So he just knows very basic commands. We are working on 'stay' and he is responding well. I think we spend too much time before letting him beg and get scraps of our food. So how do I expect him to know the difference now. My own learning experience. He's just so intelligent and fast!(running with stolen food). Its hard to do real training when he's so damn cute!!! Thanks for all your advice and I'll let you know how it goes.The tv guide is a great idea. I was thinking of a flyswatter to make a loud noise.

[pkmiddler]

How old is he? We start at about 4 to 6 months with a down to get feet wiped at the door not a stay just down and wait but we do have a special one called "piggies" which means no foot wipe no go to play in the front room.By the way if you think our dogs do not get goodies from our plates and other stuff you are wrong.Like I said if I eat with my plate on the coffee table they all sit around me to wait for their bite,but they can not TAKE off the table only what I give.We have one we call the shark (Annie) she sits under the coffee table and sticks only her head out to get her bite then back under to wait.Guess she is really a baracuda. Not one of them grabs they "know better".Keep trying your boy will figure it out before you do I bet then he may try to get you to work harder just to watch you get upset(a Dachshund thing).

[Frankie's Mommy]

Frankie is 5 months old now. I'm just not real patient with daily vigorous training. But manners, I can do. I just never had such a challange before. There is nothing worse then the look you get when he's disappointed!!!!!!!! Its so hard to stay strong. I had a piece of meat from dinner last night and I sat down on the floor and kept telling him to "wait" and not take it from me. Which is a huge feat for him because it was hamburger. He got so frustrated that he kept bopping my hand with his nose and then he actually opened his mouth and looked like he was THINKING about biting my hand. He has never done that before and I realized, his patience isn't that good yet and I was just teasing him. The funny part is, I could tell the minute that he thought about biting me, he looked so guilty in those eyes. We had a little talking to about that but he was so sorry, How could I stay mad. Also had another first today, we live in upstate NY and today was the first warm day in a long time. It was almost 60 degrees (yahoo!) and all of the snow was melting into huge puddles. Well, Me and my three yr old took Frankie for a walk. I didn't realize it until we got home but his belly and chest was caked in mud. He had to go instantly to the tubby. He looked like the undercarraige of a car. Another new problem with having a low-rider!!!!!!!! He was so proud of himself, he just had to roll on the rug.

<FONT COLOR="#00FFFF" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">This message has been edited by Frankie's Mommy on February 20, 2001 at 05:50 PM</font>

[Heather]

I had a very positive experience with clicker training. It was used in my puppy kindergarten class, and I noticed a dramatic difference in Bean's behavior. It was as if he wanted to please his human all along, but just did not know how. He now had a way to show me he loved me back. I bet Frankie just is not sure of what you are asking him to do yet. The key to training is consistency and patience.

I agree with Mandy that your dogs probably things the kids are equal to him. You need to establish that they are 'above' him on the proverbial totem pole.

You can buy clicker books online. Just use yahoo search and you will find a bunch of site. Or try www.clickertraining.com. (http://www.clickertraining.com.)

Good Luck!

<FONT COLOR="#00FFFF" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">This message has been edited by Heather on February 20, 2001 at 09:47 PM</font>