Dog stealing food

[TheHandmaidsTale]

Hi,

Just wanting some advice on an issue I am having. Our rescue beagle (been with us 3 months) has recently started trying to take food from our plates. We eat on the sofa (no dining table) and he managed to snap a piece of toast off my plate the other day and there have a been a couple more attempts. He used to listen to 'no' but doesnt seem to be now.

We are attempting to train him to sit whilst we eat instead of climbing all over us by giving him treats when he sits when we are eating. Is this the right way to go about it?

You need to stop puttin temptation under his nose! If you have no room for a table could you have a breakfast bar or put a stairgate up to keep him out of the room when you eat?

Puttin!
Puttin?
Bloody phone!
PUTTING

Hmmm I can get away with eating snacks on the sofa but only just and I have to be on my guard in case a snuffling nose comes to close. I therefore class that as bloody brilliant but even I would not try a meal with knife and forks on the sofa with mine about as the temptation of smells is just too high and I couldn't guarantee a 13kg dog suddenly descending on my plate.

Ha. We could NEVER eat with a plate on our lap around Wolfie pup. I can manage a sandwich. Just!

Have you got a crate or a baby gate? Your only answer is to separate your dog from temptation. Beagles are notoriously greedy anyway. I will always remove my dog from the vicinity if she is a nuisance while we are eating. She is at last getting the message.

I’d give him something else to do while you’re eating. Beagles are notoriously greedy so it must be torture for him to know that food is so easily within reach...

When our dog was a puppy we’d put him in his crate with a chew or a kong while we ate which kept him busy. Once we got rid of the crate we started sending him to bed at mealtimes and periodically rewarding him for staying there.

Now that your dog realises there are easy pickings on the sofa it’ll be a bit harder but if you give him something tempting in a kong that should give you enough time to eat in peace

Thanks all. Ive been trying to persuade the other half to get a dining table but space is an issue. May have persuaded him to get one like this though: furniture123.co.uk/p/santos-folding-dining-set-in-white-and-pine-400-401-146?refsource=FUadwords&refsource=FUadwords&gclid=Cj0KCQjwg7HPBRDUARIsAMeR_0gf83tSsApxgu4EakWJ5QICMbHwxL5rtlZ6tzInrZ2LxAhVeLcppfAaAgv_EALw_wcB

Yes much easier to manage when you can eat at a table. Ours either goes and sleeps as he knows it's boring time when we are at the table or if it's something he recognises with the smell (chicken, sausages or steak which we sometimes feed him as a special treat but not from the table) we get a bump of our legs under the table to let us know that he's there and knows what we have . I think if I ever tried to eat sausages on the sofa I wouldn't see them for dust

Good plan. Or a stairgate or playpen for the dog. Or dog eats his dinner when you have yours. Or has a stuffed Kong?

Thing about beagles is they are persistent buggers. If he thinks there's a chance of getting the food he'll always, always give it a go. If it pays off even once he'll always remember. So unless you want to spend every mealtime enforcing the rules, put him in a different area or in a crate while you eat.

If you're prepared to train your way around this, it can be done. In my experience it's impossible to train a beagle to just NOT do something. You have to train them to do a specific something else instead, iyswim. So yes, actually I'd say treats for sitting nicely is an ok strategy. Just make sure he's sitting far enough away that he can't do a quick lunge at a plate and undo all your hard work.

My little dog is an absolute Hoover at every other time other than when I'm eating. I can eat sat on the bed or on the sofa and he knows not to even try it.
Took me about 2 months of not even having him in the room whilst I was eating at the table - other room with his kong. I have a rule that he has to be leg length from me whilst I'm eating and he has pushed limits. A firm "no" or "ah no" means he's pushing his luck.
Be firm and be consistent. Make a decision where you want him to go during meal times and stick to it - whether that's on his bed/in another room etc.

Have you changed his food recently to a lower protein type? Is he hinting he's hungry

Utter, that is precisely how I taught my dog to lay down when we were sat at the table. The ONLY behaviour that earned a reward for him when we were eating was to lay quietly and at least pretend to be asleep. Whenever he did he was lobbed a bit of whatever we were eating. Laying down quietly is now his default behaviour.

our dogs are not even allowed to stare when we are eating, let alone get up and come over to us to grab food. They have to stay in their baskets while we eat. Can you put them in a different room when you eat? Or just keep making them him go back to his basket?

Our beagle learned how to open the fridge with her nose- and ate a packet of lard. She also broke the dishwasher by opening the door and standing on it so she could lick the dirty plates .

They are such greedy buggers. When she stayed with my grandparents when we went on holiday, we came back to a dog that was basically square with a leg at each corner. My nan said 'She was also hungry!'.