Whether your pet takes food from the garbage or from your dinner plate, a dog stealing food is no easy matter to deal with. Dogs and garbage food tend to go hand in hand. I like the easiest method of all for dealing with a dog that takes food from the trash can. Want to know what it is? The best way to stop something from happening is to prevent it all together. The answer is prevention. If you can keep your food all nicely tucked away somewhere in a container, your dog will never cause you any trouble with rotting food all over the floor.
If you must have a garbage bin in the open for some reason, be sure to correct your pet whenever it looks into the can or wants to go near it. Preventing a habit from forming is the best possible way to get a dog to behave the way you want it to. If your dog likes to take food from the table, it would be best to set up some form or another where you can control the training. Think of it as a dog experiment. Easy enough to do don’t you think?
If you can convey the meaning of privilege to your dog, in terms of eating, then you are going to be well off in the long run of things. If your dog knows that is must have your say, before it can dive into its meal that is a good thing. You don’t want to take this to the extreme though otherwise your pet will never eat unless you are home. Again use the praise technique here or say OK or good boy, good girl, something along those lines whenever the pooch is fed.
Practice this kind of feeding for a couple of weeks. It is also a good idea to do this with a set of treats throughout the days and weeks. Make sure to keep it as random as possible for any sort of routine will throw the training off (in this case). You want to keep the dog on its toes and make it think. I would suggest doing this with treats and any kind of food other than dog food. Like I mentioned earlier, you do not want to make your dog think it is wrong to eat from its own food dish. Your pup will starve if this is the case.
Another device and tactic you could try is the use of a citronella collar and vinegar spray to deter the behavior. Whenever your dog feels the need to take your food, you can activate the collar and spray by remote. This not only works wonders for problems such as the dog stealing food, but also for things such as dog digging, eating feces, and all sorts of other behavioral issues. Remember to never reward your dog for the bad things it may do or not do. Only give praise and reward when the pooch has done what you asked it to do.
