Jakeysmum Posted January 14, 2007 Report Share Posted January 14, 2007 My lovely labrador has one major fault. He is greedy to the point of stealing food from the kids and eating his food, my other dogs food then our food given the chance! I have had a food thief before and he eventually grew out of it with lots of care but the same things aren't working this time. Since we had Bon in october we have fed him on complete, with oily fish once a week. bones, which he didn't have before, once a week at least, and have recently introduced chicken wings etc. We have pretty much got the counter surfing under control but he has gradually got worse with the food snatching. Yesterday was the final straw when he took a potato of my daughters plate. This was in addition to his food and her food and then he vommitted everywhere! I have never seen so much. Any advice would be lovely xxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K9Fran Posted January 14, 2007 Report Share Posted January 14, 2007 Have you tried training a 'leave it'command? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiona711 Posted January 14, 2007 Report Share Posted January 14, 2007 You have my sympathy with this one , my rescue boy Storm is the greediest dog i have ever known , when he first came he he was really overweight and thought anything at all on bunkers etc was his for the taking , luckily he did not try to steal of plates . A reliable "leave " command is a good one to teach them but it is a lot harder than it sounds when you have a greedy dog that just wants to eat everything in sight . One thing i did with Storm was to get him to lie down , then hold a treat on the floor in front of him and telling him to leave , at first he tried everything from crawling forward mouthing my hand to barking at me etc but as soon as he left it i would give him the treat and praise him like mad , like any kind of training it is a slow gradual thing but it does pay off if you are consistant , i csn now put him into a down , put a treat on the floor in front of him tell him to leave and he will , i dont do it often but it does help to reinforce the leave command Nice to hear you have made progress with the counter surfing it can be a nightmare , food snatching will be hard to stop and i suppose second guessing him when he is going for it will take split second timing , as soon as you see him going near any plates i would tell him No firmly if he understands the word no or any word he does know , off leave etc . Good luck Fiona xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jakeysmum Posted January 14, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 14, 2007 Leave it works with a ball! I have tried getting him to lie down when we are eating, my other dog always goes to lie down as she has always done, in fact she could sit on your knee while you eat a 3 course meal and she would not even flinch! The counter surfing we solved the hard way, after he had had his head in the butter a few times I learnt to be more careful and tell him no, down etc and he seems to have stopped it, touch wood! I wil try the treat trick. If he gets through dinner without bothering us he gets a treat but that isn't often. Thanks for the advice xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t-dog Posted January 15, 2007 Report Share Posted January 15, 2007 You have my sympathy, I have a ten year old lab who has never lost her appetite. I've tried everything over the last eight years, my other dogs have good "leave" commands but to Meg it means gobble it down as quickly as I can before she catches me. On a brighter note she no longer overturns all my rubbish bins looking for food, she's stopped eating the soap from the bathroom and she no longer rips out my coat pockets looking for treats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pouchie Posted January 15, 2007 Report Share Posted January 15, 2007 (edited) Think this must be lab thing as my 9 yr old chocci lab has always been greedy she will go off for miles if she smells bread as this was her staple diet before we had her. Also Rudi my 16 month old Retriever will steal anything and everything given half the chance. we do use the "leave it" command and he sits with his jaws chattering trouble is if I turn my back both of them will just gobbles what ever is left unattended Edited January 15, 2007 by Pouchie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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