How to Stop a Little Dog from Stealing Food

In this Omaha dog training session we worked with Artie, a one-year-old Miniature Schnauzer, who was having issues with rules and boundaries and stealing food from the dinner table.

Artie is a young dog who was recently adopted and his guardian wanted help establishing new rules and adding structure to her home. This is a great way to help a young dog relax and feel secure in the home and look to his guardian for direction. One of the issues was that Artie was trying to steal food from his guardian when she ate. To help him stop stealing food I taught her how to set an invisible boundary around the dinner table, which you can see below.

As you can see in the video above, at first Artie was trying multiple times and trying different ways to remain under or near the dinner table. Remember that he is not trying to misbehave, he is simply trying to learn where the new boundary is- in other words this is a learning moment!

By the end of the session Artie was comfortably staying away from the dinner table while his guardian ate, not barking at the roommates when they came into the home and learning how to stop pulling on the leash. I want to remind his guardian to use our Petting with a Purpose technique to reward him for good behavior and use the Escalating Consequences to disagree with him. We wrapped up this dog behavior session with Artie’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.