How to teach a dog not to beg?

Question

When we bring out food, Our dog is always begging and begging and last night she ate the food right of my plate. How do we stop our dog from doing this. It's really irritating when we have guests over. How can I make her stop begging for everything?

Answer 1

Never feed her anything or anytime other that regular meals, not a bit. Take every time she begs and make her go and sit or lie down on her spot till you can just tell her and she goes by herself. Consistency is important here. Don't change things around and confuse her.

Answer 2

Obedience work can help. Teach your dog the "sit/stay", and when she's solid in it, use that command and have her stay during food time. Like other people have suggested....no food at dinner time. No handouts at all. Otherwise, they figure if they can get food sometimes, they'll just keep trying. What we do, and it just seems to be the easiest....at dinner time the dogs go to their rooms. The two little terrorists that can't be trusted unsupervised yet go to their crates, and the others have their beds. Or they're turned out for exercise. If they can't see it, they can't beg. Definitely when company's over. While we don't mind occasionally having the dogs trying to mooch a handout, I definitely don't think it's right to subject guests to that.

Answer 3

One of my dogs started begging and once I stopped her, she taught the others that begging was not allowed.

I'm trying to figure out how your dog ate the food "right off" your plate. Where were YOU when this happened? Since you know the dog begs and has bad food habits, your dish should never be left unguarded with food or food residue on it. I can leave my plate on the coffee table and it's untouched unless I OFFER to allow a dog to lick it.

Start a feeding pattern that discourages her begging.

Put her morning and evening food out in a different area of the kitchen, or in another room just before you put your own food on the table. A dog with a full tummy has less interest in begging.

When she finishes her meal, if she comes to beg, you make her sit down, and then you ignore her. You do NOT feed her any scraps from the table during your meal time. The only reward she gets for sitting while you eat is a pet and cheerful "good girl".

When you have guests over, she's not allowed into the room with the guests at mealtime. If you have a fenced area or a runner, put her outside while you eat with guests.

When meals are finished, clear the table immediately and put the dishes at the BACK of the counter, where she cannot reach them. Until you break her bad habits, you don't even feed her any treats as you clean off the dishes. You can save left overs to mix in with her next meal in HER DISH, but don't even feed her at the kitchen sink cleaning up. It takes complete withdrawl for her to return to being a polite family member.

I can feed my girl treats now at various times, but when I ignore her, she goes away because she knows and accepts what she's being told. She gives me an initial look to express interest and when told no or ignored, she leaves and lays down in another room. So I can feed her occasional treats in the kitchen, but I never do it each mealtime to ensure she doesn't start expecting it and go back to begging. I don't object to her asking once, so long as she accepts my "no" and never takes something without my offering it, even if she CAN reach it.

Answer 4

One thing you should never do is to let a dog eat off your plate. Or even eat while you are eating. Dogs should be fed after you have eaten your dinner completely.
When you are having dinner put her in another room or in her crate if you have one. And ignore her no matter what she does to get your attention. Apparently you or someone else has given her food while they were eating. Dogs don't naturally beg for food. They only do it because they are taught to. However, dogs will watch the Alpha's eat. Watching you eat and begging are 2 different things. They watch the Alpha so they can get the signal from their leader when it's their time to eat.
You best bet is to put her in another room until dinner time is over.

Answer 5

Feed the dog her dinner at the same time that you eat yours, and do this in a different room. Also, you can try a method I read about from a trainer. Have the dog sit in a certain area wherever you eat (i.e. the rug in the corner of the room or by the door etc.) and give her a treat for staying there. She'll start to understand that if she sits in that aera and does not bother and/or beg, she'll be rewarded.

Answer 6

You'll need to do this consistently and have your other family members follow the same procedures for this to work.

Leash the dog. Have someone hold her while you put a plate of food on the floor. She'll try to get at it of course. You need to be very firm about telling her no and making her sit and stay away from the plate.

When you can trust her to lie down in front of the food, take off the leash and correct any sort of attempt she makes to get at the food. She'll have to learn that she's not automatically entitled to the stuff on the table and that her food is given by you, the owner, when and where you want her to have it.

Answer 7

Teach her to lay on a dog bed or mat in a corner away from the table while you eat. Give her a toy to chew on, everytime she gets up, take her back to the mat. It'll take some repetition but she'll soon figure out she needs to stay there during meal time.

Answer 8

Osition your dog in a sit, facing you. Use a treat to lure his head up and back while cueing him to "beg." Allow him to nibble the treat from your fist, to entire him to stay in this position. If his hind quarters lift off the floor, lower your treat a little, tell him to sit, and tap his bottom down. As your dog's balance imrpoves, move away and use the verbal cue and hand signal. After several seconds, tossthe treat to your dog.

Answer 9

Your dog has learned from the past experiences that she has a good chance of getting something.
Down and stay during YOUR mealtimes should be a rule. Or a plain removal of your dog from the situation.
Never ever deviate from this.
IMHO, "stealing" food from your plate is something completely different though.

Answer 10

All of these reponses are good ones. If she sits and stares at you while she's eating then she's been fed table scraps as you and your family have eaten or been given food from your plate. If you have any left overs on your plate that you want to give her, scrape them off into HER bowl do not let her eat from your plate.

When you sit down to eat and your dog is sitting in front of you staring, get up and with your body push her back (walk into her so she backs away) to her "place" . Direct her to a spot in the room, like her dog bed or another corner that is designated as her "place" every time she does this you need to get up walk into her pushing her back and to her spot. At first you are going to do this A LOT until she finally gives up and goes to lie down. Be consistent if you don't want your dog to beg EVER. If you don't want her doing this then you can NEVER feed her table scraps while you are sat at the table or from your plate.

As far as stealing food from your plate then you need to be diligent and consistent about making her lie down, don't leave food unattended either, if this is something she does when you're in the kitchen then she needs to be banned from the kitchen You need to CLAIM the kitchen and keep her out.

My sisters dog is told to lie down on her bed whenever she does this. My dog does this because I have fed her from my plate since I created the monster I have to fix it or live with it.

I would strongly recommend you watch "It's Me or The Dog" with trainer victoria Stillwell. She deals with behavior problems such as stealing food from plates (even their owners mouth), begging while their owners are eating, pulling, barking, running off, dog aggression, people aggression and separation anxiety. It's on Friday Nights at 9 pm EST on Animal Planet.

Good Luck