Great Training Tips to Stop a Big Puppy from Stealing Food from the Kids

In this puppy training session we worked with a nine-month-old Lab mix who needed help to stop stealing food from the kids and stop nipping when playing with the kids.

After I arrived I sat down to chat with Auggie’s guardians about their main puppy behavior concerns. I learned that Auggie would steal food from the kids’ plates. This is a tricky behavior to stop when you have young kids because the kids can’t train the dog to stop stealing the food. So I wanted to introduce clicker training to help Auggie learn how to redirect his attention away from the kids’ plates and eventually get him to relax when the kids have food out. To see how I accomplished this you can watch the video below.

Another important component of training is that while it is important to actively work with Auggie like we did in the video above, the guardians will need to prevent Auggie from stealing food when they are not in training mode. The best way to do this in the beginning stages is to kennel Auggie or if it is nice outside put him outside in the yard when the kids have food out. If he is able to steal food from the kids’ plates when the parents are not watching it will be near impossible to prevent him from doing this behavior. But if they can stop him from stealing food and train him to ignore the kids when they do have food out he will learn how to stop stealing food.

By the end of the session Auggie was learning how to relax when the kids were walking around with food on their plates. He was also looking to his guardians for leadership and direction. As a Lab trainer I recommend that the guardians work with Auggie for 5 – 10 minutes a day to keep up with this good behavior. We wrapped up this puppy behavior session with Auggie’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.