Teach your dog to beg!
My dog begs for food at the table- what should I do?
Begging can be an extremely annoying habit, but it is actually quite fixable! ll you need to do is decide HOW you want your dog to beg and then train that begging behavior. For example, let's say my dog begs by standing with its head in my lap drooling on me. I can simply decide that I'd like my dog to beg for food by laying on a bed across the room instead. First, teach your dog to lay on the bed and then begin reinforcing your dog with food as long as he lays there quietly when you eat. At first, you'll need to reinforce your dog with a piece of food throughout your meal - the reinforcement may need to be every few seconds at first. Over time, your dog can learn to lay on its bed for a single reinforcer at the end of the meal. Eventually, your dog will even learn to go to its bed without being told to whenever you sit down to eat because it knows this is the chance to earn some goodies!
Alternatively, you could reinforce your dog for staying behind a certain line (such as a doorway threshold) while you eat. Or, pay your dog for laying at your feet. Just pick some nice way of begging and reinforce that new behavior heavily!
So what if my dog does that but only when told to? He comes to me, I say down - which he does - I give him a treat. He goes away to play or whatever, comes back and the process repeats. He's about 1 year old. What can I do to get him to come in and lay down without verbal instruction?
Posted by: Jai | May 09, 2008 at 07:46 AM