how can i stop my dog from begging for human food?
My mom taught my dog to beg and now I can't get him to stop. He begs for everything we eat and it gets so annoying.
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First you should put a pillow, blanket or dog bed in a place where the dog can see the table but that is at least 2 meters away from the table. Then you train your dog to go to this place on command. You need to start this training when you are not eating and there are no distractions around.
When your dog goes his spot on command, you should introduce new rules for the whole family:
Whenever there is food on the table, the dog goes to his spot. He stays in his spot until the last person is finished eating.
When the dog comes to the table anyways, you send him back to his spot. No exceptions. Don't punish him or anything, just send him back.
The dog does not get any food during your meal. You can put morsels aside to feed him later, but never during the meal.
Some dogs are especially stubborn and try to beg at the table again and again. In that case you can think about putting your dog on the leash in his spot so he cannot walk away.
I am assuming that you are sitting at the table and the dog approaches you, sits or stands or lies down very close to you, and looks at you imploringly, urging you to give him some food.
You say your mother taught him to beg. Sitting up in a begging posture when asked is fine, so I am assuming that she "taught" him to beg for food by giving him titbits, either deliberately or unknowingly, perhaps from the table. If she has been feeding him from the table in this way, rewarding him for begging, you have to make sure she stops.
The second thing you have to do is to train him to do something else instead, which you can do by rewarding him to go to a special place when you are eating. Consider teaching him a special thing like shaking hands or a high five, if he doesn't already do both of these, or you can still use one of them if he does, and reward him with a tasty treat which isn't what you're eating. Make say a hand up be the cue. It's OK to start doing this at mealtimes, a few times only, then once only, then get up from your chair at the table and take the interaction over to another part of the room, or to another room entirely, perhaps to his basket, and stop doing it from the table. He may ask once or twice for you to do it when you're at the table, but if he does, ignore him. The idea is that he goes and waits nicely, without pestering you, and then at the end of the meal, once you've cleared up, you go and shake hands with him or give him a high five, and give him a nice treat.
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