When you don’t train your dog to stop begging every time you sit for a meal or snack, you end up feeding it junk that can harm it. It takes a lot of resilience to ignore your furry friend’s big puppy-dog eyes.
In this article, we’ll focus on steps to help train your dog to stop begging so that it can remain your best friend for a long time.
Feed Your Dog in a Separate Room
One way to do this is to have the same meal time with your pet. This entails eating at the same time of the day at home but in separate rooms. Once you provide it with a bowl of its tasty meal, it becomes too busy to beg you. Also, you can snack simultaneously, especially when watching movies together. You can have your popcorn to yourself and ensure that you provide it with tasty treats.
Block Access
It is possible that your dog finishes its meals before you and comes to beg for yours. So, you can also prevent begging by barricading the table area with pet gates. This way, your pet does not get access to the table or stand a chance to beg for your food. Another way to do this is to close its crates until you have finished eating.
To lessen boredom, you can provide fun activities like puzzle toys filled with favorite treats to help you stay busy and happy.
Train Your Dog to Heed Basic Obedience Commands
Another important thing you can try is to teach your dog to obey simple commands like “sit,” “stay,” “go,” “leave it,” and so on. Once your dog understands these, you can communicate effectively, especially when it is something you are displeased with.
These commands are not just for fun’s sake but tend to lessen impulse-based behaviors common among pets. You teach it to respect certain boundaries for fun and satisfactory cohabitation.
It is best to train your dog after its routine walks or exercise so that it is less energetic and well-behaved.
Reward Good Behavior
The Reward system is another language dogs understand very well. This entails providing its favorite treats whenever it does well to encourage such behavior. So, it is nice to treat your dog when it is well-behaved or doesn’t beg for your food.
When giving treats, ensure you don’t do so on the table. Instead, provide them at the corner where the dog is sitting or playing away from the table; else, you encourage the behavior you are trying to dispel.
Conclusion
For more tips on how to prevent your dog from begging, you can consult us anytime. At Leader of the Pack, we’ve got professional trainers that can help handle your pets at any time to help perfect the behavioral traits you prefer.
All you need to do is call on us, and we will help you train your dog to stop begging and be on its best behavior all the time. Join our group training sessions or sign up for in-home private classes today!