Your dog will stop begging for food at the table with trainer's five-minute fix
A dog trainer has shared advice for pet owners trying to discourage the habit
Pet owners can prevent their dogs from begging for food using a 'simple' method. A dog trainer has shared how pet owners can tackle the habit and train their dog to encourage better behaviour.
Posting on TikTok as @Ameliathedogtrainer, the advice was shared by Amelia Steele, a VSA Certified Professional Dog Trainer and Behavioural Specialist. Amelia titled her video: "Want to stop your dog begging at the table?" Her video said: "While there's food on the table, stand up every 10 to 30 seconds and feed them a treat on their bed.
"It doesn't matter if they don't get up at this point, they don't have to stay just yet. Because the bed is the only place they get fed, they will start to stay there naturally. Once they are staying there, get up every now and again to reward them for staying.
"Over time, you can move their bed further away and space the treats out more to build distance and duration." Showing off the results, she filmed her dogs sitting on their mats shortly after they had been trained. "This was after five minutes of training."
The video was extremely popular with viewers and went viral. The post gained over 3.5 million views and 370k likes. Amelia often shares similar tips and tricks for pet owners in her social media videos.
In another post, she demonstrated how to teach dogs to respond to the prompt, 'leave it,' which owners might use when they need to prevent their dog from eating something they're not meant to.
She advised: "Teaching your dog to 'leave it' is an absolutely life-saving skill. So today I'm going to show you how to teach your dog to 'leave it.'
"So all I'm going to do is I'm going to take one treat, and I'm going to hold it in my hand like this, and then I'm gonna show it to my dog, I'm gonna let him sniff it, and as soon as his nose comes away, I'm gonna mark yes, and I'm gonna give him a different treat. So a treat from my other hand, which I'm keeping behind my back."
Amelia explained: "I'm gonna repeat this until he's doing it really confidently. Now that he's got the hang of it, all I'm going to do is I'm gonna say the words 'leave it' every time before he takes his nose away. So I'm gonna show him the treat. 'Leave it. 'Yes', and treat."
She concluded: "Now that we've done that, I'm gonna start showing him the treat. If he goes to take it, I'm just gonna simply bring my hand up, and we're gonna try again. I'm always gonna say leave it first, so that he knows what I'm asking him to do before I show him the treat."