8 year old golden starting to misbehave

[Want2bSupermum]

We have had our golden since he was a puppy and he is my shadow. Three kids later he has adjusted well. I make sure he gets 1-1 time with me and he sleeps next to me every night, alleviating the separation anxiety he had as a puppy.

In the past two months he has started eating food left out. So far he has eaten a few loaves of bread and a slab of butter in the butter dish. Nothing else is damaged. He seems to be excellent at not eating the packaging but I do worry that he could choke.

It's odd behavior and the vet hasn't been helpful in finding a solution. Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone have any ideas on how to handle this?

Dogs are opportunistic scroungers by nature. Give them the opportunity and they will take it.

This is very rewarding behaviour for him. Put foot away out of reach.

food

Maybe he had a little nibble and thought yum! If this is the only behavioural change you have noticed I would agree with the person above, just push food out of reach.

Dogs steal food if they can. Put food out of reach. This isn't misbehaviour. It's opportunist!

You have probably been just lucky he hadn't punched food in the years you have had him. As soon as mine got big enough to jump up and sniff the counters no food has been safe to leave out when our back is turned

We put food away normally. He is very clever and can open cupboards so carbs normally go onto the upper shelves.

I was just really surprised by the butter. He ate a whole pound of it!

Don't leave food out anywhere. Its amazing how far a determined scavenger can reach.
I found my rescue GSD licking butter that'd been left in a closed carton on the worktop, I'd pushed it against the wall and never imagined he could reach that far.
He'd managed to partly lift the lid up with his tongue, when I told him to leave it he stopped and the lid went back down.
So if I hadn't caught him in the act I wouldn't have known he'd done it.
He'd probably been doing it for ages feeling sick not envious.

Thank you so much everyone. I've been worried that with him getting older there was something wrong with him. DH just told me he has soiled in the house a couple of times but going by the rough dates DH gave I think it's because of the bread he has eaten.

My old boxer x collie used to eat anything he could get in his mouth!
He'd nick the sugar bowl and take it outside, across the drive to the grass to eat it. I was amazed he didn't smash it. He was sneaky and we just used to find an empty sticky sugar bowl on the grass! Hes also eat butter, bread, a whole cabbage, meat, rancid chicken from the builders van, chocolate (only the expensive ones) and anything else that might be vaguely tasty! He lived till he was 16 so it didn't do him any harm!

They are dustbins! Nothing they eat surprises me.

My lab once ate a whole sack of onions, you could smell the onion breath before walking through the door

She was fine, and fortunately suffered no ill effects

My dog's speciality is stealing eggs. He can help himself to an egg from a closed carton, in complete silence, when my back's turned. Then he lies down looking innocent concealing the egg in his mouth until I discover it's gone.
He lets me take the egg out of his mouth, still intact so I give it a wash and put it back in the carton.
Strange dog!

I have/had 5 goldens. Every single one of them has, at some point and at least once, eaten a whole tub of butter from the worktop. You'd think I'd learn but clearly not
Goldies are support systems for a stomach. I wouldn't worry.