Stopping Gargabe Collection & Countersurfing (no punishment allowed)

here's what we do:  Put something not-very-tempting like lettuce on the counter. Reward dog vigorously for not taking it. Gradually increase the value of the item. Sometimes give the dog rewards as well as the item for not-taking-it. Once you can put your dog's oh so favorite food there and the dog just sits quietly (drooling is allowed), you're ready to add distance. Go back to lettuce. Start walking away from the food. Start leaving the room for brief periods. Continue rewarding dog for not-taking-food. Start gradually increasing the value of the time. Sometimes give the dog the item as well as a reward. Start using your own meals in the training game- leave your plate on the table while you run to the phone, etc. It helps to have a command (ok you may eat now) and a routine about giving the dog dinner, too, so he learns that you control all access to food, it's not a self-serve household. While training it is very important the dog never be allowed the opportunity to counter-surf, so manage the environment until training is done. And even when the dog is trained, don't be stupid-- leaving a roast beef on the counter for five hours while no one is home is somewhat unreasonable.

Garbage can training is similar to don't get on the couch training. You simply reward the dog for being-in-the-presence of item and not-getting-on-it/ not-raiding it until it's an ingrained habit. And you make sure the dog doesn't have unsupervised access to item until the training is done. And don't be unreasonable-- get a nice sturdy garbage can with a difficult to open lid. Any dog may be too tempted by easy access to nice bacon rinds just sitting there on top of the garbage.

If the dog has already learned the joys of garbage raiding and counter-surfing I am not sure pro-active training as described above will work.

thank you for all of your responses

ron2

You can teach a dog to not do something with punishment, even with environmental punishment but does that lesson stick forever?

For me, Yes. And it's not even about punishment or reinforcement. The dog knows the shoes (or the garbage or the stuff on the counter or the books) are MINE and he is not permitted to take things unless I give them to him.  

espencer

But there are ways to teach your dog to be dependable with ALL things in ALL situations, there is nothing better than to be relaxed because your dog knows all the boundaries and you dont really need to have all those "is the trash bag open?, is the bathroom door closed? are my shoes inside the closet?" thoughts on the back of your mind every day

I've taught my dogs that if it's not on the floor, it's mine. And some things (shoes, trash can, etc.) on the floor are mine, too. Unfortunately, B'asia noticed that the tea cabinet is on the floor, so I've had to use some punishment with that. She's done with that now. And her bed... She's a chewer. And it is her bed... LOL But like espencer said, I don't touch them to get them to realize this. It's all vocal, energy and blocking.

Because of our relationship, they understand approval and disapproval and act accordingly. And I leave my dogs loose all the time. I have gone away for the day and nothing happens. B'asia chewed on the tea cabinet and her bed while I was here. She's 10 months old and still learning.

I agree that this is a situation that cries out for management. Neither of my dogs were ever bad chewers, even as young puppies, which is practically unheard of for their breed. My hubby was leaving his shoes on the floor from the time Dena was about 3 months old, and she's NEVER chewed one. Our previous two shepherds both went through horrendous chewing phases that lasted a long time, but they eventually grew out of it. In the meantime, we supervised them when we could, worked on teaching them what was theirs and what was ours, and confined them in an area where they couldn't get into trouble when we weren't around. Management. Once they were about a year to a year and a half old they were reliable enough that we didn't need to manage the situation anymore.

But food, is well, FOOD! Much, much harder for a dog to ignore than it is to decide to chew a bone rather than a shoe. I could spend tons and tons of training time making them ignore food on counters and in garbage cans so that I could waltz out of the house with a chunk of cheese of a hunk of meat within reach, but why? They know not to try it in front of me, and if I have to leave the room while I'm making dinner I just bring them with me. Often they follow without me saying a word, but if not, I just have to call them and they'll turn away from food on the counters and come running. They will stretch up their heads and sniff at the edge of the counter, but a simple "ACK!" deters them, and they know that actually putting their paws up there is a HUGE no-no so they don't even try. I do sometimes leave meat defrosting on the countertop when I'm home but in another room, and it's never been a problem. I make sure to push it all the way to the back of the countertop so it's as far from the edge as possible, but still, a determined dog could get at it. One of the advantages of having velcro dogs - they'd rather hang out with us than stay alone in the kitchen, even with meat nearby!

When Keefer was a puppy he had horrendous manners around food. He'll do backflips for food and would eat until he exploded if I let him, he's always been that way. Since he's a large breed he was big enough to eat off the countertops at an early age. When he was little and I didn't have time to work with him on training while I was busy making dinner I crated him or put him in the garage pen. In the meantime I worked on training basic obedience skills, worked on self control with NILIF, taught him not to eat until released to do so, rewarded him for attention, taught him "leave it", "off", and other things. Once I had enough obedience on him that he would listen and pay attention to me with food on the counter I started working on getting him to leave it alone while I was cooking. But until then there was just no point, he didn't have the skills.

To me, it's just as easy to not leave food laying around. My garbage cans are inside cabinets because I don't want to look at them and I have a small kitchen so space is at a premium. Bread is in the breadbox, perishables are in the fridge. Sometimes we do leave out packages of cookies or muffins on the counter, but even though we may be home and in the office for several hours while they're free to roam the house they don't touch them. My hubby has even left cookies and crackers on the coffee table overnight and all the next day and they don't touch them. I don't for a minute think I could leave my dogs alone with cheese on the table, but so what?

I think the only R+ technique is preventative, as Mudpuppy described.

 When my dogs are puppies, I manage the dog intensively.  I actually do a minimum of puppy-proofing.  I make sure there is nothing in the environment that could hurt the puppy, but I don't get crazy about picking up shoes, putting away food, etc.

My management is positive, and is basically a process of reinforcing the behavior I want and redirecting away from behavior I don't want.  Ie, puppy does for shoe, I take shoe and hand puppy appropriate chew toy.  No punishments.  I do this over, and over, and over.  The basic principle in my house is that if you are a dog, it isn't yours unless I give it to you.  If something has been presented, you are free to play/eat/destroy it. I won't deny that it is a lot of work, and requires 24/7 supervision in the early months, but I find it so so worth it. I spend a lot of time connected to the dog by a leash. 

The one glitch in my system is that Sasha will sometimes model cat behavior, and the cats are little you-know-whats about rules. The result being that if Sasha thinks you have abandoned food on the dining room table, she's likely to help dispose of it, as the cats have no problem jumping on the table and helping themselves. 

Still, 75% of the time Sasha will find me or my husband and do her "please please" dance if food has been left on the table (by my daughter). Sasha will actually come find me upstairs to "ask" if I will allow her whatever goody is on the table.  She came up with that on her own, but I like it so I reinforce it when she asks permission. I think it may be a result of me encouraging her to come to me if my daughter was ever being too hyper or scary. (Not to the dog directly, but Sasha isn't always thrilled when my daughter is bouncing around the house doing her monkey ninja gymnast thing).
 

we don't puppy-proof either. Pup is either intensively supervised or is locked up. We've found it's much easier to teach the dog what-you-can-chew than attempt to teach you-can't-chew-this for an endless number of items. If it's on the chew mat you can chew it; if it's not on the mat, no-chew. Dogs eat nothing in the house unless I give it to them. We practice "stay" in front of food a lot, so dog learns to resist temptation and only eat when instructed or invited to do so. Dogs play with nothing in the house unless I invite them to do so. Very black-and-white rules that dogs quickly and easily learn without any need to use force, disapproval, punishment, blocking, concepts of ownership.

I've only dogproofed to a limited degree, as what I am also mainly doing is houseproofing the dog. But when I can't be actively working on that, the dog is put in to a place that is totally dogproofed. Neither my husband nor myself are going to be winning any Housekeeper of the Year awards but I notice pretty quick what the new dog is finding particularly irresistible, and manage those few things more heavily and for a longer time. For me that's been various versions of garbage cans, food on counters, books, small plastic things and shoes. Depended on the dog, they each kind of had their foibles. For Marlowe it was small plastic things and food. For Conrad it was garbage and shoes. For Ananda it was books and shoes. Ananda never once garbage-dove and as I related earlier he got punished pretty heavily by some hot spicy soup his first day with us, so we could actually leave him alone in a room with food at his level. But books and shoes? They called out to him, pleading to be chewed up. So those things got managed for quite some time. Marlowe has never once chewed a shoe or even noticed a shoe--he doesn't even stop to sniff them. But cell phones and remotes? Look out. Not any more, but for a while I had to keep those things under wraps quite a bit.

 And MP I've never had a dog who was a big time chewer (one of the advantages to adopting adults is a greater chance of getting a dog who's already out of that phase) but if in the future I did, I would be all over your chew-mat training because I think that is an awesome idea!
 

houndlove

And MP I've never had a dog who was a big time chewer (one of the advantages to adopting adults is a greater chance of getting a dog who's already out of that phase) but if in the future I did, I would be all over your chew-mat training because I think that is an awesome idea!
 

Amen to that. Sometimes, someone here, such as MP, will say something and I get a big lightbulb moment. I've gotten them from Chuffy, too. That's one of the advantages of this forum. different ways of phrasing things or arriving at a solution that we can all draw from.

mudpuppy

here's what we do:  Put something not-very-tempting like lettuce on the counter.

It is so nice that I am the highest value reward for my dogs....everything else is lettuce.  I have no counter surfing here or garbage raiding.  I have an open bag of the dog food in the corner and my counters are cluttered with dog food stuff, treats, bread, and cereal.   The new dogs seem to learn from the others cause this has never been a problem.  Again, are your dogs fed enough and the need satisfied?

DPU

I have an open bag of the dog food in the corner

Same here. I think between his regular meals and all the goodies I give him in training, he may not have much need for trash diving. Then again, my dog has a Sibe metabolism. He just doesn't eat a lot at one time. A pure Lab, however, is usually a chowhound and will eat themselves silly. It doesn't matter if you just fed them and did some treat training. If there's food available, it's tempting, unless trained for a greater reward. But I must admit ignorance about the metabolism of Great Danes.

A side note: I've studied English, German, a bit of Latin, have learned a bit of Spanish, both castillian and tex-mex. And I've learned a smattering of other languages. I'm trying to figure out what gargabe is. Just kidding, I couldn't resist.

DPU

Again, are your dogs fed enough and the need satisfied?

 

Define "enough". For Keefer, there is no such thing. Although he does well around food in the house because we've worked on that, he found an unopened bag of dog food in the garage, and managed to rip it open and chow down I have no idea how much food before I stopped him. In the morning the door to the garage is propped open for access to the dog door and outside, and they can come and go as they please while we get ready for work. So this was in a fairly short period of time, while we were both home and not that far away in the house. If I hadn't heard weird noises and gone to investigate he would have eaten even more.

We watched carefully for signs of bloat, and although his tummy swelled up so that his sides noticeably stuck out instead of his usual trim waist, there were no signs of distress - no panting, no pacing, no air licking. Several very large bowel movements later he was fine, but it showed me that he WOULD eat and eat and eat and keep eating until he was sick.
 

For Marlowe, there is no such thing as "eaten enough to be satisfied". He got into a bag of dog food once and literally ate until it was coming back out of both ends. I promise I don't starve my dogs--not by a long shot. But there are dogs who know when to stop eating and there are those that....well, they just don't. To Marlowe it just does not matter and there is no such thing as a low value food item. Lettuce? Bring it on. I actually do training with him during the times when I'm making dinner with bits of whatever I happen to be prepping (and we're vegetarians, so we're talking carrots, kale stems, tofu) and he sits there and drools for it.  I have never offered him a food item that he didn't eat with gusto and then ask for more. For him I think eating is very much tied in to his high prey drive and that's just the way he's wired. Conrad is much pickier, knows when to stop eating, chews every mouthful of kibble thoughtfully and sometimes even leaves a few bits of kibble in his bowl and walks away. Same household, same training, same food, just different individual dogs.

*edited by mod* a simple Google search would have netted you this: http://www.clickertraining.com/node/1034

As to the requirement that the garbage stay on the floor, *edited by mod* it is a good idea to manage a dog's environment to prevent him from being accidentally rewarded for the behavior you wish not to encourage - it gives the trainer time to teach the dog to learn a fluent "leave it" command, and remain away from those areas even when no human is present.  I have four dogs here, and my trash bin has been on the floor longer than they have lived here.  In addition, my counters are at the normal level, and I have all kinds of food items right out in the open.  None of my dogs surf the counters.  All through the power of positive training.

*Ugh!*

remove the ri before t in "sd" an you'll get something right