3 Easy Ways to Stop Your Dog From Begging
Begging comes naturally to our dog’s, and they’re so good at it that we often give in. I think we’ve all said things like “Oh, look he’s starving” and handed our dog a bite of our dinner. And without realizing it we’ve just reinforced their behavior even more.
I’m not going to lie — I find it hard to resist those puppy dog eyes. But if you really want to teach your dog not to beg you’re going to have to learn to stop giving in.
Why Do Dogs Beg?
To put it simply dogs beg because they want food. Begging is a natural behavior to dogs, so it takes a lot of consistency to undo that behavior if you’ve been reinforcing it.
Wolves began scavenging for human food many years ago. They started hanging around humans for scraps, and the tamer the wolf the more they were rewarded with extra bits of food. Begging isn’t rude or weird to your dog; it’s instinctive.
Domesticated dogs are hard wired to seek out opportunities to obtain food from humans. And because they’re observant they quickly learn that begging produces results. It is one of the most common complaints of pet owners, but there is hope. You can keep your dog away from your food while your eating, you just have to be consistent.
If you want to keep your dog from begging the first thing you need to do is make it a strict rule.
How to Stop Your Dog From Begging
We’re guilty of reinforcing our dog’s bad behaviors. and since our dogs know us so well they’re good at learning how to get what they want. Dogs beg more when we’re looking at them; they know it works. Those big puppy dog eyes and all that whining – it works really well on us humans.
The first step when teaching your dog not to beg is to make a promise to yourself: stop giving in. Every time you give your dog a treat from the table it’s teaching them that begging works. It might not work every day, but our dogs have good memories; they’ll keep trying if they know it worked last week.
It’s not fair to expect good behavior from our dogs if we ourselves don’t remain consistent. If you want your dog to stop begging you have to ensure that you’re not giving him mixed signals. You can’t scold him for begging while company is over and give in the next day. You have to be consistent and fair.
Training ourselves to be consistent is usually the hardest part, the rest is fairly simple. Here’s 3 ways to stop your dog from begging.
1. Ignore Your Dog’s Begging
If your dog already has the habit of begging for food you need to completely ignore the behavior. If he receives a scrap from you one single time he knows that his efforts might pay off next time.
It sounds simple enough, but being consistent can be tough. Don’t look at your dog while be begs. Don’t speak to him. Don’t shoo him away. Just ignore him.
If you look into those big eyes while he’s begging you might feel bad for him and give him a bite. Any attention you give him while he’s begging might make him think you’re just about to give him some food since it’s worked so well in the past.
He will probably fuss and protest if he’s a prolific beggar, but you are going to have to learn to ignore it. Your dog will eventually learn that “hey, I guess that’s not going to work anymore.”
Don’t equate food with love. Your dog is not starving. You feed him well every morning and evening. More than 50% of American dogs are overweight, your dog doesn’t need any extras. If you still feel bad just remember – he’s manipulating you.
Dog’s have evolved those big sad eyes and floppy ears for just that reason, to manipulate you into caring for them. They’ve evolved more puppy like features and tend to share a lot of characteristics of wolf puppies rather than adult wolves.
It’s not exactly their fault that they’re so darn cute & easy to care for, but remember – your dog is not starving and all those extra bits of food can shave years off his life.
By ignoring your dog when he begs he’ll eventually learn that it’s not going to work anymore.
2. Separate Your Dog From the Dinner Table
One of the simplest ways to stop your for from begging is by preventing the behavior to begin with. You can do this by separating your dog from the dinner table.
You can teach your dog to lay down in another room while you eat, or you use a baby gate to keep them in a separate room. If your dog is already a beggar remember that his behavior is probably going to be quite resistant for a little bit before it gets better, but the consistency will eventually pay off.
Have your dog lay down in his bed or wherever you’ve chosen for him. Praise him when he lays down and give him some treats in this spot.
Depending on his stay command you might have to work at this for awhile before he’s consistently staying in his new spot. After you’ve eaten go over to him and give him lots of praise, give him treats. Let him know the behavior of sitting calmly while the family eats is what’s going to yield the best reward.
If you don’t think your dog is going to be able to stay for any amount of time or you don’t have a decent stay command mastered you can choose to separate him with a barrier. Baby gates are a common choice.
3. Redirect His Attention While You Eat
If you don’t want your dog to stay completely separated from you while you eat you can redirect his attention to some food, toys, or treats of his own. Give your dog something else to focus on while you eat. Give him one of his favorite bully sticks, or stuff some peanut butter inside of a Kong.
Whatever floats his boat (stuffed Kongs, chew toys such as Benebones) is what you’re going to use for distraction. Ignore him if he gets up from his treat to beg. He will probably do this for awhile if he’s accustomed to begging.
As long as you don’t give in and feed him from the table anymore he will eventually learn that his begging skills aren’t going to pay off anymore.
If you’re consistent and decide to stick with it begging can be quite easy to correct. It just takes patience and consistency. You need the whole family involved; if dad decides he’s not going to play along and gives in you are not going to be successful.
You can’t give in, no matter how cute he is or what sounds he’s making, it will put you back to square one.
Does Your Dog Beg for Food?
Does your dog beg for food? What method worked for you when it came to stopping the behavior? Let me know in the comments below.
What a wonderful article! I couldn’t agree more with your approaches. Consistency & patience are definitely key in order to discourage and eliminate begging. Not only does it contribute to canine obesity, it it also plain & simply rude! Dogs who don’t have any pent-up energy are much less likely to beg, as are those who are accustomed to following rules.
We always exercise our pups Buzz & Missy before their meals, and then have them lie down quietly and calmly in their beds or crates while we eat. No begging allowed in our pack!
Thanks. Consistency and patience are definitely what’s needed; I think a lot of people give in because… well it’s just so easy to give in when you have a dog staring up at you with those big, sad eyes.
We go through this a lot with our different foster dogs. They always seem to beg. Kongs and chew sticks are what we use to break them of the habit. If they’re really stubborn, we crate them.
Ignoring them can be hard to do especially when they look at you with those big sad eyes and having a vocal dog on top of that is even harder. So that’s where consistency comes into play , you can’t scold them today and then turn around and give in tomorrow. Your dog is very smart. And know that what didn’t work today to get a treat doesn’t mean it wont work the next time. You see they also know how to be consistent, and in many ways better then we do. Once you realize that your being played by your cute little buddy who is way smarter than you realise you will be able to make some progress in stopping the begging. The trick is to teach him that when he lays down and stays while your eating when your done he gets a treat
We taught ou dog “wait your turn”. We used it any situation that she would getting desirable to her. “Do you want to go for a walk?”… “Wait your turn”, then when she was calm and quiet we would get her leash praise her for waiting her turn. “Do you want to go for a ride?”… “Wait your turn”. Again when she was calm we would say ” Good girl you waited your turn”. By the time it got to begging … same thing. But now she knows “wait your turn” will come with a reward and she knows that she only gets the reward when she is calm. To get her dinner she must set on a particular spot on the rug, she figured out by herself that if she went to that spot at the start of dinner that the reward would be better than if we had to tell to go to that spot and lay down. Generally, she would go there herself as soon I would call the family saying”Dinner’s ready”. After we were done eating, the table cleared, the left-overs put away then and only then did she get her dinner. If she had gone to her spot on her own, she would get a special treat before her dinner. Sometimes, she might even get lucky and get a meat scrap or small cube of cheese. Eventually if she knew she had been really good and she didn’t get her special treat when she was released from her spot she would patiently sit to see if that was enough of a reminder for us that we forgot the special treat. In the beginning when she was learning and not compliant we never punished, only said “no wait, no go”. It didn’t take long for her translate that wait your turn meant yes, but not this very instant.
Great article! I totally see how I’m contributing to the behavior and need to rectify that! My Boston is very grumpy and goober-Crotchety.
An affordable alternative to a baby gate that’s helped us and is a bit longer are the outdoor metal play pens. They can be unfolded to block bigger than a doorway!
The command is in place. Once learned, this is extremely helpful in many situations, but it takes time and patience on your end without getting frustrated. You should easily find videos on YouTube demonstrating this process.
Besides that, if you want to offer any additional foods beyond the dog food, make sure you place it in his bowl rather than feeding on a table or couch.
Staying consistent should help. It’s probably tough for the dog, too. Imagine being offered only oatmeal (or something equally bland) for the rest of your life after experiencing so many other flavors. It is perfectly ok to supplement the dog food with some fruits/veggies/proteins once in a while, but only after he has refrained from begging. https://esacare.com/best-dog-trainers/
I try to feed my dog when I eat whenever possible, so she isn’t starving and salivating watching me.
I still feel bad. I only give him what I feel he has coming, scraps, which are the same as what I ate, the meat only, maybe some eggs. I feel he is more loyal to me, than I am to him. Dogs, are so loyal better than most humans, it hurts me. His dog food stinks and he knows it is bad food. Also I cannot afford wet food, so I mixed wet and dry. Mistake, he looked at me like you jerk, even when I give him scraps.. Your article helped, but I still hurt inside.