Can I Have Help Training My Dogs?
Filed under Care & Training Q&As
i have two dogs, and black lad that’s 9 years old and a westie mixthat’ss 4 years old. me and my family havegivenn them too many table scraps and theydon’tt eat their food any more. so i can i get them to stop bagging for human food and get them back to eating their own dog food? and is it too late for me to stop them bagging?
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No people food for dogs, not ever. I know you think you’re being kind, but the fat and sodium content alone is terrible for them, not to mention whatever else may be in there.
Easiest way to prevent this is to not have the dogs in the dining room at all when you’re eating. Feed the dogs in another room, or outside, immediately before you sit down to dinner and do not allow them back into the room with the family until dinner is finished and the table has been cleared of all food items.
They probably won’t eat their food for a little while, but don’t concern yourself with that too much. They won’t starve themselves, no matter what pitifully sad eyes they give you. When they get hungry, they will start to eat.
Do not feed the garbage in the little stew containers that someone recommended. It’s junk food in a container.
And people, if you need obedience training please take your dog to a legitimate trainer, one with plenty of experience and who has titled several dogs in different breeds. Do not try to get training at a retail store, like Petland, from some girl who does this as a part-time job for $8/hr.
You could try feeding them Beneful, the kind that comes in plastic containers because it has gravy and real beef and vegetable chunks, but it will probably seem like human food to them. It also has a lot of vitamins for your dog, so it is much healthier than human food for your dogs. After feeding them that for a while, i would try just pouring dog gravy, which you can buy at any pet store, over their food if you want to switch to dry food. Please do this as soon as possible because people food is really not healthy for dogs.
Depends on how many years you’ve allowed them to Beg for food. Of course they aren’t going to eat their own food when people food is so much tastier than plain old dry food.
If they aren’t eating their dry food then try mixing in wet food with it to add flavor, dry food alone is boring so give them some variety. Stop feeding them from the table and stop giving them table scraps. At all times if you are going to give scraps then you must place the table scraps in their bowls, and not feed from the table. When you sit down to eat and they stand and beg, stand up use your body to push them backwards and make them lie down on their beds. This will take some time to retrain them to do, after a while when you sit at the table they will lie on their beds. Ours do, when we sit down for dinner or family game night our dogs are sleeping on their beds. Sometimes when we play games I will give each dog a rawhide bone to chew while we play, now they know family game night means good treats for them.
If they won’t eat their food with wet food mixed in leave it down for 20 mins, if they walk away pick it up and throw it out. Next day same thing. They’ll get hungry enough they will eat, they won’t starve.
So every time they come and stand up at the table for food, stand up and walk into them pushing them backwards with your body and make them lie down. You will probably have to do this several times during dinner for them to finally get the hint, but until they stop coming to the table begging for food, you need to keep reinforcing the lie down.
One thing to do is cut off their table scraps completely. Put their food in their bowl, make sure they know its there, and then ignore them. If they beg at the table, pay NO attention to them. Don’t pet them, dont say hi to them, dont even look at them. When you are finished with dinner, put the scraps in the TRASH!!! Once they are hungry, they will find their own food in their bowl and will eat it. They wont starve themselves to death. They are smart animals and are simply trying to get the better food (yours) but they must learn that the only food that they will get is dog food.
You mean “begging”? Stop feeding them table scraps. In the morning, give them their food. If they don’t eat it, pick it up, they get nothing to eat. Later in he night, have them try to eat their own food again. If they don’t, pick it up. They won’t starve themselves, when they’re hungry they will eat.
first, ur familly gotta STOP feeding human food, instead, pour some dry dog food in the bowl and make them starve. when they get so hungry, they will start eating the dry foods. but if they don’t u can pour some water on a dry food and let them get wet. the smell will get stronger and dogs will eventually eat them when they r hungry
try my doggie help website!!
http://www.freewebs.com/ponygurl015
I have alot of helpful advice there and you can email me if you have any questions.
Bring them to a local PetSmart store. They have really good classes for dogs. http://stores.petsmart.com/petsmart/