If your dog is quick to snatch food from hands – especially when guests are sitting down – you’re not alone! Food stealing can be managed and trained away with the right approach. Here are some proactive steps to help your dog learn manners around food while keeping everyone relaxed and happy.
Step 1: Consider Why Dogs Grab Food
Understanding why your dog is food-motivated can help frame your approach. Dogs do what works best for them. If an approach pays off, they will repeat it. After a while it becomes a habit. Many dogs learn that grabbing food works because it’s fast, effective, and satisfying. With a little time and planning we can teach them much better alternatives to get what they want.
Step 2: Manage the Environment
Some see management as a cop out, and you’ll often hear trainers say “management always fails”. But management, to the best of our ability, is key in helping our dogs learn better behaviors. If our dogs continue to find reward in doing behaviors that we don’t like, those behaviors will become stronger and more difficult to break. Before that happens, we can add management by controlling our dog’s environment to prevent the behavior from happening in the first place. Training must take place, but first we must make sure that the wrong thing isn’t being learned while we teach the correct thing.
Prevent your dog from reaching food by using barriers or managing their space during meal times by setting up physical boundaries: Use baby gates, doors, crates, or dog beds to keep them at a comfortable distance from food. If necessary, use a leash to keep your dog from making a mistake.
Step 3: Reinforce Alternative Behaviors
We’ve taken away your dog’s methods to get what he/she wants. We must teach them alternative behaviors to get what they are looking for. Work with your trainer to get some behaviors trained that can replace the grabbing and jumping. At Happy Hound Pet Services, we like to teach Go Settle (sometimes called “Place”). We can teach your dog to go lie down calmly on a mat. If they are lying down on the other side of the room, they are not grabbing. Add a chew toy, lick mat, or puzzle feeder to this and they can be engaged in having fun finding their own food rewards while you are allowed to eat in peace.
Step 4: Practice Impulse Control
Teach your dog “Leave It” and “Wait” commands to help them learn that delayed reinforcement is possible. We will start small and grow these behaviors until your dog is comfortable leaving food that is within his reach until you tell him it’s ok to go and get it.
Step 5: Teach Gentle Taking
Teaching your dog to take treats gently from your hand will improve all interactions where food is involved. Help your dog understand that grabbing doesn’t work nearly as well as patiently waiting and gently taking food from your hands.
Step 6: Be consistent. Practice. Generalize by practicing with guests and family.
Start with family members first, then gradually introduce visitors who follow the same training cues. Reward Good Choices. Keep treats handy so that when your dog resists the urge to grab, the reinforcement is handy and can be given quickly.
With consistent practice, patience, and a solid management strategy, we can teach your dog to resist the urge to grab food from people’s hands.