Free Tips to Prevent a Large Dog Eating From the Table

In this Omaha in-home training session, we worked with Charger, a 1-year-old Great Dane mix. Charger’s family contacted us about a common issue, a dog eating from the table.

Our end goal was to teach Charger to not eat food from the table. We also taught him to stay away from the dining room table during meals. We also worked on getting him to stop mouthing his humans. Additionally, we focused on improving his listening skills.

I could tell right away that Charger was anxious and had cortisol pumping through bloodstream. He was twitchy, darting around the room, head on a swivel, barking in protest, then sniffing a bit before running away.

I used my understanding of how dogs behave to help him feel calm and become familiar with me through scent. This is the way dogs should initially investigate new things. Once he sniffed me thoroughly, he relaxed even more. It took a while, but eventually the dog felt comfortable enough for me to touch and pet him during our session.

After observing the dog and talking with his family about his behavior, I realized that Charger believes it’s his duty to protect the humans, but they don’t pay attention to him. This makes him stressed and anxious when he tries to alert or protect them, which definitely adds to his nervous, high-alert behavior.

How to Stop a Dog Eating From the Table

I shared some tips on how to train a dog by rewarding good behavior and showing leadership. This will help the owners gain the dog’s respect. It’s important for humans to appear as leaders so he can stop worrying about protecting them.

I also went over my strategy to teach kids positive and desired ways of interacting with the dog. Kids can greatly influence a dog’s behavior by motivating them and teaching them basic dog care.

One way to do this is by celebrating desired behaviors when the dogs offer them.  This can help the dog understand what is expected of them and help them learn manners.

It is important for kids to be consistent in their interactions with the dog to reinforce positive behavior. Dogs quickly learn that if they ask for something and you ask for them to do an action, doing the action will be rewarded. Not doing it equals no reward. After a while, the dog is motivated to do what you want to get their reward; pats, attention, treats, etc.

To stop a dog from stealing food, I next showed the family how to train a dog to stay out of the room during meal time.

You can learn how to keep a dog away from the table by following these simple steps:

1. Identify the “no cross line.” This is the boundary you will be teaching your dog to respect.
2. Lure your dog across the “no cross line,” into the area you want them to wait. Cue them into a sit then say your marker word and give a treat.
3. While facing the dog, take one step backwards across the line you dont want them to cross. Immediately return to your dog, say yes (you are marking staying in place and not crossing the line), then give a treat.
4. Repeat step 3 a few times. Keep only stepping 1 step back until your dog sits in the space calmly.
5. Once your dog is staying there in a sit easily, repeat step 3, but this time take two steps backward.
6. Repeat step 3 but add in an additional step (one at time) then practice a few times before adding another step.
7. Once you get completely in the room, do a single action (grab a glass, open the fridge, etc), then put it down or back and return to your dog to make and reward them with a pet or treat.
8. Start adding in more action and time in the room, but gradually. You want to slowly build up to multiple actions and longer duration. The key is to go at yoru dog’s pace, ie your dog isnt getting up and coming into the room.

Basically what you are doing is teaching your dog to stay behind the line and making it worth their while. Setting boundaries and training a dog to stay away from a table will take some practice, but eventually the dog learns that staying out of the room during meals. This kind of basic obedience is underated. The bonus is they are motivated to leave food on the table as you communictaed that is what you want from them and doing so will earn a treat.

This is an easy way to stop a dog eating from the table, provided the humans dont give them food. Feeding your dog from the table is a common mistake that motivates the dog to want more food from the table. Pretty much the opposite of trying to sop a dog eating on table during meals. This approach can also help stop counter surfing dogs.  An easy way to establish boundaries.

Once your dog gets good at staying behind the line, I recommend warming up a piece of meat in the micro wave and having people sit at the table simulating eating that meal. Scent is big for dogs, so practicing that step AFTER the dog learns to stay out of the room, is how you finish teaching a dog to stop eating from the dinner table.

Training a dog to stay away from the people who are eating is actually pretty easy with the right approach. But consistency is key. By practicing the meal as I detail in the above video, the dog gets to “warm up” to the behavior in an easy scenario. Then once the canine companion sits or lays down outside the boundary, the family can serve the actual meal.

Setting Dog Boundaries

Many of Charger’s problems were due to the family petting him at the wrong times. He would invade the mother’s space and she would automatically start petting him. He would nudge into her, another pet. He even air bit her and she would, you guessed it, pet him.

But anything a dog is doing before we pet it is what we reward. And in many cases, the dog will start pushing even further. A gentle nudge can quickly turn into jumping and play biting, but not in a mean way.

It would be beneficial to teach Charger some control commands and exercises. Check out this free lesson where I teach a dog to drop, leave it and stay. All these commands that will help Charger in one way or another.

To help the family remember all the positive dog training exercises we went over in this in home dog training session, including how to stop a dog eating from the table, we shot a roadmap to success video.