Stop Your Dog’s Counter Surfing, Food Stealing
Posted on September 6th, 2010 Written by +Brian Benson Email Author
Have you ever experienced setting down your dinner on the counter and then leaving it for a short while only to return to an empty plate? As it turns out, your dog has eaten your dinner as it leaps onto the counter top to serve themselves to your own food. Counter surfing or food stealing is one of the most annoying habit of a dog. Although this is a common behavior, it still does not make it acceptable.
If you want to curtail this behavior once and for all, you need to employ proven strategies and a specific approach to ensuring it will not occur again. But first, you need to learn more about this behavior and how it develops.
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What is Counter Food Surfing?
All dogs go through a phase wherein they jump from the floor and onto a bench, chair, or counter in search of food or other items they can nibble on. In fact, some dogs would even snatch food away from your hands if you are not being careful around them. There are several different components to this dog behavior that you must know about if you wanted to find an effective way to minimize it or eliminate it altogether. After all, it is not only annoying, but could be risky for your own health and of your dog’s.
You need to understand though that counter food surfing or stealing is a perfectly natural behavior. However, it does not mean that you cannot or should not do something about it.
Why Do Dogs Steal?
Your ability to discover what your dog’s main motivation for doing some counter surf or to steal food is an important first step to stopping this behavior. Knowing that this behavior can be potentially dangerous, especially for the health of your dog, then it is important to act fast.
Experts can provide a few good reasons why dogs would want to surf your counter in search of food. Or, a better question to ask would be: does it really have something to do with food all the time? Your ability to gain more insight into this behavior will arm you with key information you need to train your dog properly.
Self Rewarding Behavior
This is one of the most difficult to address reasons for dogs to exhibit this kind of behavior. Most feel redeemed or self rewarded whenever they are able to steal food items off your counter. The reward could come in various forms, such as the ability to satisfy themselves with the food that is left on the table or the ability to get your attention.
Unless you are able to determine which is their motivation and you can address it right away, then you can expect this behavior to continue and might even get worse.
Symptom of Canine Separation Anxiety
Dog experts also have a theory that food stealing could be a symptom of canine separation anxiety. However, this often applies for items aside from food. In most cases, they associate the scent of an item with its owner, which is why they tend to sniff on it and snatch the item from its original location.
Lack of Obedience Training
If you do not train your dog properly on obedience and proper behavior, then it is easy for them to develop unacceptable behavior such as food stealing. Since they are not properly trained, they do not know how to obey your command nor respect your commands. They are therefore free to do whatever they want to in your home such as helping themselves in the kitchen. It is therefore a smart idea to start early when it comes to training your dog.
Your Dog is Hungry!
This is the most obvious reason why dogs steal food from the counter. Hence, it is important for you to look after your dog’s meal time to ensure that they were well fed and satisfied. Or else, they will look for food themselves even if it meant jumping up on your counter and eating a household member’s dinner plate!
Other Reasons For “Counter Food Surfing”
The above reasons that were listed are just some of the most common causes of this dog behavior problem. Here are some other possible reasons that you must learn to address:
- Lack of proper household etiquette training;
- Seeking attention;
- Dog is looking for items to play with;
- Dog is met with boredom.
How To Stop Your Dog’s Counter Surfing, Food Stealing
Train Your Dog To Stay On All Fours
You need to start with the most basic training approach for your dog and eliminate their counter surfing behavior. You must therefore make sure that your dog will stay on the floor on all fours. The more you can promote this type of behavior, then you can easily inhibit their behavior of jumping on the counter in search of food.
You can use basic commands, which you will learn more of later on, to tell your dog to set their feet on the floor. If they obey your command, then reward their good behavior to encourage it. If your dog joins you in the kitchen and they manage to keep all paws on the floor, then you can give them a treat to fight the urge to jump up on the counter. This will create the impression on your dog that the only way for them to receive a reward would be to stay on the floor.
Keep Your Counter Clear At All Times
This is an obvious tip if you want to put an end to your dog’s habit of stealing food off your counter. Before you start to punish your dog, owners have their own share of the responsibility too. You must therefore train yourself as much as you train your dog to ensure that you can prevent them from stealing food from your counter.
Thus, you need to keep your counter clear at all times, especially if you are going to leave the food behind or if no one is there to supervise the kitchen. When you leave the counter empty, then you will not reward them whenever they attempt to jump up on the counter. Make sure that you keep the counter and kitchen table clean at all times, even for small food items. When your dog jumps onto the counter and get something to nibble on, then it serves as a reward for their behavior and will most likely to keep doing the same.
However, it is not only food that you must remove off the counter. Dogs have the tendency to nibble on any items they could find and it will be just as rewarding as when they find a food on the counter top. An empty counter is therefore your safest bet.
Proven Strategies
There are several methods that dog owners can choose from when trying to stop food stealing behavior. You can pick out one that suits your dog’s problem most or you can even combine several methods at one time. But it is important to understand what the main points are and determine how you can implement it into your own pet.
Here are some of the strategies that you can use:
- You can start off with obedience training. According to dog experts, there is no dog behavioral problem that cannot be addressed with proper dog obedience training, which includes food stealing or counter thieving. There are also several benefits to obedience training that goes beyond addressing this problem. Two of the biggest benefits would be the ability to tighten the bond that exists between the master and the dog, and the ability to implement training command to control your dog’s behavior.
- You can also use a “booty trap” on your dog. This is a specific method intended to teach your dog that food stealing is an unacceptable behavior and something that you will not tolerate. In fact, you can scare them off by indicating that they will have to undergo an unpleasant consequence if they disobeyed you and continued on with their behavior. A good idea is to place an unpleasant tasting food item on the counter to serve as “bait” for your dog. When they attempt to steal and eat it, only to discover that it was unappealing to them, then they would be discouraged to continue on with this behavior in the future.
- An alternative to the “booty trap” method is to use a water pistol to aim at your dog the very instant they climb up onto your counter. The whole idea of using a water pistol is to stun your dog without necessarily hurting them. Make sure to do this before they actually were able to consume the food.
- You can also use a command that will direct your dog to go over to a specific spot during situations wherein they are tempted to steal food off your counter. The idea is to simply distract your dog and make them forget about their initial objective, which is to take food from your counter. You can also assign a specific spot in the house for them that is appealing enough for them to not want to bother checking out the counter top or kitchen table anymore.
- The “Leave It” command is one of the most useful commands you can use in this scenario. Although you intend to keep your counter clean and empty at all times, anyone in your family is bound to make a costly mistake at some point. If you did catch your attempting to get his share of food from the counter, then this is when you must use the command. In a stern voice, tell your dog to leave the food on the counter and wait until he manages to get on all fours. If he does, command your dog to sit and wait for him to comply before you reward him with a treat.
Tips or Warnings
Regardless of whether or not your dog is obeying to your initial commands to stay on the floor and not jump up on the counter, this task can be more challenging than it seems. Hence, it could be a real test of patience for the dog owner to enforce the various dog training strategies to reap the results you want.
However, you need to observe the following warnings to ensure that you do not go beyond the acceptable limits when it comes to training your dog:
- Do not yell or hit your dog whenever they steal an item or food off your counter. In fact, it will only encourage your dog’s behavior because this is exactly the kind of response they expect from you. It teaches them nothing about their own behavior, especially if your dog is doing it to get your attention.
- Make sure to rectify your dog’s behavior to put an end to their urge to steal food from your counter. After all, it is not only intended to curtail this annoying habit, but also for their own safety. You would not want your dog to find and chew something that could potentially be poisonous to them.
- Keep your dog mentally active and stimulated throughout the day. You can play hide and seek with them or any other outdoor games. You can also trying walking them on leash. All are intended to increase bond and obedience to the owner such that they’d be more likely to follow your commands.
- Always use their designated dinner bowl when serving your dog some food. Hence, they won’t be looking around for food scraps on your dinner plate or counter top.
- Do not forget to reward your dog if they exhibit a pleasant behavior. If they remain seated on the floor, throw them in some nice treat. If you can keep your dog full and satisfied while staying on the floor, then they’d have no reason to go hunting for food themselves.
- Always supervise after your dog. This will ensure that you can correct any unpleasant or unacceptable behavior right away, such that you can give immediate feedback on their behavior.
With the use of the right training approach and with your persistence in training them, it should be easy to eliminate the counter surfing behavior of your dog in a few sessions. When you follow the recommendations for the training, then you should be able to enjoy dining on your kitchen table or counter top with no hassle whatsoever.
