Teaching a Little Dog to Stay Out of the Kitchen to Help Her Develop Self Control

For this Omaha dog training session we teach 6 year-old Long-hair Chihuahua Sadie how to stay out of the kitchen and share other tips to stop her from barking and reacting to things she dislikes.

Sadie did a lot of barking at me during the first part of this in home dog behavior appointment. Mostly it was to complain about my moving without her permission, but she also did it at times to demand my attention. It will be important for the guardian to start introducing and consistently enforcing rules over the next 2-4 months to establish a healthy leader follower dynamic.

We also discussed the importance or structure, otherwise Sadie will see her humans as peers or equals. This is important as if a dog sees you as a peer, then listening becomes optional. In some cases, a lack of rules and structure can confuse a dog into thinking it needs to be protective or possessive of the humans it lives with. Im pretty sure that is the case here. Petting Sadie with a purpose is a wonderful way to help a dog see you as a leader.

To help Sadie start developing self control, I showed her guardian how to train a dog to stay out of the kitchen. Even though being in the kitchen isnt a problem with Sadie, practicing enforcing a boundary like this is a nice way for the dog to start to develop some self control. You can learn how to teach a dog to stay out of the kitchen by watching the free dog training video below.

Consistently enforcing the rule that she isnt allowed to go into the kitchen when food is present will help Sadie see her human acting like a leader and also help her develop her ability to self restrain. That skill will help Sadie in many facets of her life. Anyone can and should help its dog practice self restraint and as you can see in the video above, its not hard to do. You don’t have to be a professional long haired Chihuahua dog trainer to do this.

I also recommended that the guardian start feeding Sadie with some structure to help her see the human as having more rank or authority. This simple and repetitive exercise works because eating is super important to dogs. Because we feed our dogs multiple times a day, every meal becomes a little dog behavior exercise that develops respect and control.

Since we covered so much in this in home Omaha dog training session, we filmed a roadmap to success video to help Sadie’s guardians remember everything.