Working to thief!

[mellongoose]

We have a 5 month old Lab who is really quite chilled but definitely a chewer.

He is exercised twice a day and fed regularly at 7am and 7pm. He is really bright and likes to learn.

To keep my sanity and to protect the rest of the house, I have put a baby gate across the kitchen door. When I am upstairs I can hear him jumping up and stealing things from the working tops.

There is no food there for him to steal but he likes to get hold of anything he can, such as Tupperware or children's drawings, keys. Etc. It's impossible to keep the tops completely clear as it's a small house and a busy household.

Am looking for a training solution to stop him jumping up in the first place, please!! Does the clattering noise thing work? It feels a bit mean.

Thanks 🙏

Title should be 'Working Top Thief' 🙄

It's impossible to keep the tops completely clear as it's a small house and a busy household.
It’s a pain but not impossible. You’re going to have to get in the habit of keeping everything out of his reach. Just give it a glance and a quick pick up before you shut him in.

Clattering noise thing may work BUT it will also add in a whole load of new problems.

Outcome one is that your dog doe not care about the clattering noise thing and it has no effect at all.

Outcome two is your dog is terrifed of clattering noise thing and then refuses to go into the room that he heard it, stay away from the person he was near at the time, and associate the noise to the wrong behaviour anyway.

Make it more rewarding to stay on the floor, so chews kongs etc to have when your dog is four feet on the floor or being left for a short time. You did need to keep the sides as clear as possible to help his training be more effective quicker.

It is more usual to feed 3 meals a day at 5 months so maybe look at adding an extra meal and using this for distraction if offered through kongs etc.

You're going to struggle to train a behaviour that's happening when you're not in the room.

The best solution is environmental management. I know it's tough (we have a small house too) but it's vital - if your pup eats something it shouldn't, they could get sick - either because the item is toxic to him, or because it causes a blockage in his stomach.

You really do need to get out of the habit of just leaving stuff on the sides. We hide things in the microwave, lock the bin in a cupboard and everything loose/small goes on shelves that are well above the height the dog can access.

Kongs/natural chews are a good way of distracting him too - you can freeze kongs to make them last longer.

Why can’t he just come upstairs or wherever you are until he’s grown up a bit .

@Floralnomad

Why can’t he just come upstairs or wherever you are until he’s grown up a bit .

I thought the advice was to not let them use stairs every day when they are young?

@icedcoffees

You're going to struggle to train a behaviour that's happening when you're not in the room.

The best solution is environmental management. I know it's tough (we have a small house too) but it's vital - if your pup eats something it shouldn't, they could get sick - either because the item is toxic to him, or because it causes a blockage in his stomach.

You really do need to get out of the habit of just leaving stuff on the sides. We hide things in the microwave, lock the bin in a cupboard and everything loose/small goes on shelves that are well above the height the dog can access.

Kongs/natural chews are a good way of distracting him too - you can freeze kongs to make them last longer.

I know this is the sensible move.

Do they grow out of it? At the moment he just wanders around taking what he fancies!! If I catch him I take it away and give him a toy that he is allowed.

The least worst option is the kitchen. Everything else is brilliant 🤩 behaviour wise.

Do they grow out of it?

That's very much dog dependent - I know old dogs (as in 12-13 years old) who will still steal things given the chance! I also know very young dogs who never show any interest in counter surfing.

At the moment he just wanders around taking what he fancies!! If I catch him I take it away and give him a toy that he is allowed.

The issue you have is he won't grow out of it while he continually has the option of doing it, if that makes sense. At the moment, the "reward" of stealing the item is greater than the reward he gets from not stealing it (ie. nothing).

If you aren't there to stop the behaviour, he has no reason not to keep doing it. So if you keep the counter tops clear (so he's never rewarded for jumping up) and make sure being on the floor results in good things (chews, treats, praise from you) he'll learn that the floor is the place to be!

Will do my best 🙃

At the risk of sounding dumbass and in case I've missed it already, can't you just keep the counters free of food and temptation and close the kitchen door when you're not downstairs?

Stairgates can do more harm than good particularly with a dog that's determined to get over and into the opposite room but as others already advised, the best thing would probably be to keep his attention and focus on things more readily available, make it appealing to be where he is in that room more than in the others and ultimately, close the kitchen door when you're not downstairs and train him to understand where the off limits boundary is.

I'm big on training dogs to understand physical boundaries without using equipment or furniture to act as a barrier if possible (understand it's not a feasible option for everyone though) and have had some epic standoffs with one or two that knew the physical line was drawn at the point wood floor meets ceramic kitchen tiling. They're quick on and pick things up a lot faster than most realise and my eldest would deliberately stand with one paw half in and half out of the kitchen pushing her luck to see at what point I would turn and tell her get out.

Spent about 10 mins once chopping veg and making tea pretending I hadn't seen her peeping round the corner and gradually easing in one paw at a time and waited until all four paws were firmly on the kitchen tiles then went “Out you go”

She was so pissed off she grabbed a used train ticket that had fallen near the bin and ran away feeling like a little rebel.

Our Dalmatian was a proper counter surfer. We cleared the surfaces.

We thought like you at first, that it was impossible, but after too many mistakes on our part we realised it was the only way. If he got something, whatever that was, it was its own reward.

We got a clear command of "off" anytime he was caught up there, and we have done lots of work on places to sit and rest in the kitchen. He's just 2 now and we're at a point where he'll either sit nicely by me, or sit in his bed, when food is being prepped and he barely even jumps up anymore as he's learned it's not productive.

We have retained the habit of keeping benches clear of the fun stuff though as it won't take many times of him getting a prize when he jumps for the habit tombe back full force!

I've cleared the tops so there is no reward. Worked well for a day or two.

Unfortunately DH hasn't got the memo yet and wondered why pup found the grapes he left there 🍇 🙄. Maybe it's DH that needs the training!

Grapes are dangerous to dogs! Please say the dog didn't eat them because if he has you need to get to a vet now!

Grapes, raisins, sultanas and currents are all potentially poisonous to dogs.
If eaten they can cause gut problems and in serious cases, kidney failure.
The toxic dose varies from dog to dog, but in some cases, can be very small (i.e. some dogs don’t have to eat much of the fruit to become poorly).
Treatment should be given quickly because left untreated, grape/raisin/current/sultana poisoning can cause death.
(quoted from the PDSA)

I've trained my dog to go to a particular place (we call it "place" ) in the kitchen - it's the mat by back door. She now knows that if she goes there she gets praise/treats and I ignore her if she's anywhere else. It's taken a while and we've not been without our paws on the kitchen counter incidents, including one time when she ate a whole packet of butter, but it very rarely happens now. She's a labradoodle and very much in the Labrador dept when it comes to food and being greedy! At the in between stage when she couldn't be trusted 100% we closed kitchen door to limit access when we were out but now we don't need to. That said, we don't leave anything within easy reach. Persistence, consistency and putting the most tempting items out of reach should do the trick.

@mellongoose training the family was harder than turning the dog, for sure!

@mellongoose

I've cleared the tops so there is no reward. Worked well for a day or two.

Unfortunately DH hasn't got the memo yet and wondered why pup found the grapes he left there 🍇 🙄. Maybe it's DH that needs the training!

Erm, if he's eaten grapes he needs to see a vet right now.

He's fine. He was caught before he ate them.

Ours is short, but still manages to steal

Yikes @XelaM !!

UPDATE. Removing all temptation work, but he is definitely still in a destructive phase. Anything he thinks he can get, he will go for. He has plenty of different types of toy. When I'm present, he plays with his toys. If not, I hear him looking for a non toy.

I'm going for consistency and riding it out. I'm told some Labradors never stop chewing though!!

Labradors are known chewers - they can eat through walls (no exaggeration!).

Make sure he has access to lots of yummy chew toys - stuffed frozen kongs, beef trachea, pizzle sticks, cows ears, buffalo skin, yakkers chews, antlers - anything natural is great, and if it can stuffed and/frozen, then even better.

My beagle was a chewer - he's three and a half now and still gets a natural chew everyday!