counter surfing and beggin

So I have never fed Lily anything fromt he table...no human food whatsoever unless something feel off the counter accidentally while I was preping dinner. The breeder let her have coffee of all things so she is obsessed with that. As she gets old she is becoming more and more of a begger and I dont understand why when she never had human food. She is pretty much on your plate when you are eating something. Yea I know I shouldnt eat in the couch but that is where I have breakfast when Im in a hurry and catching up on the news at the same time. During dinner all she does is stick her nose on the table as high as she can reach. She hasnt stolen any food yet but Im afraid it is getting there. I tell her no and off and she usually does that but I dont think she understands why. She is also increasingly becoming more of a counter surfer... I know sheepies tend to do that but is there a way I can teach her not to counter surf? It just gets really annoying and I really dont want her on the counters..... any help from anyone would be much appreciated. I just want to stop these behaviors as soon as possible....

Respond to this topic here on forum.oes.org

I posted this a few months back, so pulled it out again. Hope that's OK! This is what I did, and still do, and Bosley still does not counter-surf and Dixie is also learning very quickly. She doesn't lay down, yet, but will sit very nicely and patiently.

"Once they have discovered that they CAN get stuff off the counter it is very difficult to stop them. You need to make it rewarding for them NOT to counter-surf. Bosley does not sniff counters, tables very much, or even try to get into the garbage if it is left out. This is how we have trained him from a pup. When we are in the kitchen at the counter he never got anything "from the counter" when he was standing or sitting. If I was making sandwiches (I don't cook, do wouldnt' be doing much else in the kitchen) I would ask him to lay down, then wait a few seconds and give him a piece of whatever I had. He has tasted lettuce, cheese, friut, bread, all kinds of veggies etc. but only when laying down on the floor. So we get the best of both worlds. He doesn't steal, becasue he gets whatever he wants when he lays down, and I have a polite dog that lays down on the floor AWAY FROM THE COUNTER when there is cooking or something going on. All good things come from ME. Mind you I do give him little bits quite often, to keep him primed up for this, but it is well worth the effort. And I also control what it is that he gets, and sometimes now it is just a bit of kibble, or boring potatoe peel, but heh, it works. With an older dog what you will need to do is phase out the opportunity for the dog to reward himself by stealing, and make it beter for him to lay down and get rewarded that way, so food needs to be put away so they can't get it, and start rewarding then with teney bits of yummy stuff iwhen laying down. You can also then reward only when laying down on his mat, or just outside the door etc. when they do that on thier own. Make a special place a "rewarding" place, but keep it rewarding by bringing bits and pieces their way quite often, at the beginning."

We adopted Panda from NEOESR in September and she had a few "issues". I am not kidding when I say, if we turned our backs for a moment and there was food on the table, she would feast. Grannie Annie recommended Scat Mats for Panda. They run off a 9-volt battery and will usually do the trick. I have one of the narrow ones on the counter but didn't stick it in place so she feasted on 6-8 'nanas the other day. http://www.pomeroys.com/EmmaDarby/AboutUs.htm I think the wide one works the best... I keep that one on the table.

The other thing is don't leave anything on the counters or table. You know the "lead me not into temptation"... remove the temptation and you eliminate the problem. It's taken several months for Panda to teach us this but we're finally learning. As Nicole said, once they learn they can, they will. And it is truly a dangerous thing because they could get into anything including meds, cleaners, etc.

Good luck!

generally there is nothing on the counters specifically because I dont want to feed her human food. She just jumps up out of curiosity to see if anything is there. She doesnt do it when we are in the kitchen either only when we are in the other room or most often when we are in the living room and watching tv. We can see the kitchen from there because its an apartment but she still does it. And Ill tell her off and stuff and she will do it eventaully but I just want it to stop completely. thanks for the advice about the scat mats, ill have to try that and see what works. A friend of mine recommended putting empty soda cans on the counter so everytime she jumped up it would make a sound but I really dont want to have to be cleaning up empty soda cans from the floor everytime that happens.

There are different settings on the Scat Mats that I have... low, medium and high. I use the high setting because I wanted the behavior to stop now... Panda was soooo out of control and would steal everything. This is what her adoption listing said...

"... She also needs someone to teach her that the house and all its contents belong to the uprights, not to Madison (Panda)..."

I had never had a counter surfer nor a dog that would take food/things off the table. She was always jumping up to see if there was something she could "borrow" for a while :wink:

She no longer does this... except when my husband left that bunch of bananas on the counter. (big sigh... it's easier to train the dog

).

You do get a zap that startles you... I tested it before I used it to make sure it was safe :roll:

Jim and I have both touched it on occasion and believe me- you will make sure it's off the next time you touch it!

It really is a good solution but they are kind of pricey... and be sure when you purchase you get the mat with the battery pack and NOT just the extension. I ended up getting mine from PetSmart.

Has anyone else noticed that sometimes the PetSmart's online pricing is much less than in-store prices? Jeez... I took a look at their Gentle Leaders a week ago and they were $24.99 in-store compared to $16.99 online... and there was free shipping online with a $50 purchase.

Thanks Ron!
For some reason I'm sometimes a step behind

I purchased 3 Gentle Leaders last week through the trainer for $15 each.

BUT I did use the links you provided earlier to purchase 5 more brake-away collars today so I'm not a total dufus.

I found that I can modify them to accept the Gentle Spray citronella devices so I'll no longer have to worry about my 2 barkers strangling.

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