How to Get Two Dogs to Stop Stealing Food Off of Your Plate

By: Sam Kanouse

Published Date: December 1, 2017

IMG 0988 - How to Get Two Dogs to Stop Stealing Food Off of Your Plate

In this Omaha dog training session we worked with Hunter a 10-month-old puppy, Beagle Mia and two-year-old Chihuahua mix, Mia to help them stop stealing food and respect personal space.

I sat down to chat with the guardians about their main puppy behavior concerns. Mia and Hunter were noticeably anxious about me being in their home and continued to bark at me. To help them make a positive association between having a new guest in their home and to get them to stop barking I tossed them yummy treats.

One of the main dog behavior concerns was getting the dogs to stop stealing food off of the guardian’s plates when they sat down on the couch to eat. I taught the guardians our Escalating Consequences to disagree with the dogs when they invaded the guardian’s personal space while eating. To see how I accomplished this you can watch the video below.

As you can see in the video the dogs were a little distracted by me standing up and videoing this training session. While it might be hard to tell in the video I made myself smaller by getting down onto the floor and then tossed them some treats to help reinforce that my presence was a good thing because I gave them tasty treats! When guests are over the guardians will want to use this same method: have new guests toss the dogs treats to change the dog’s mind from being nervous to being excited because new people = yummy treats.

By the end of the session the dogs were relaxing while I was in their home and becoming comfortable with having guests in the house. Mia and Hunter were respectfully staying away from the guardian when he sat down on the couch to eat a snack. To keep up with this good behavior the guardians will want to use our Escalating Consequences to disagree with the dogs and our Petting with a Purpose technique to reward them for good behavior. We wrapped up this puppy training session with Mia and Hunter’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.

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This post was written by: Sam Kanouse