COUNTER SURFING
WHAT IS COUNTER SURFING?
This is for dogs who tend to jump up and steal things off the countertop.
STEPS
Step 1: Health
It may seem obvious, but first, check that you are feeding your dog enough of a quality food, so they do not have to source needed calories and nutrients elsewhere.
Step 2: Management
Management solutions should always be considered before training and for this one it is simple, DO NOT LEAVE FOOD UNATTENDED ON COUNTER TOPS.
If it happens whilst you are there preparing food then you may decide that at these times your dog enjoys a chew or kong or other food puzzle in their pen or crate.
Step 3: Training
If this is no good to you, you can teach an alternative behaviour. For example when you are preparing food you could ask your dog to go settle on their mat or simply reward them for sitting rather than jumping up. The important thing is jumping up is not rewarded (they don’t get any food) but staying on their mat or sitting is rewarded and you could even use some of what you are preparing such as the carrot ends.
Note you will have to build up the time they offer the alternative behaviour gradually. For example initially they may get rewarded for being on their mat for 30s but in time that can be 30 mins.
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A Note on Punitive Methods
Punitive methods are telling your dog what not to do and not what to do and thus not addressing the root cause. Nor is telling a dog what not to do giving the hippocampus a useful selection of memories to draw from and this could thus lead to another undesirable behaviour instead.
If you use punitive methods with a young dog, anxious dog, aggressive dog or not within about 1.5 seconds of your dog’s unwanted behaviour you are at risk of causing behaviour problems such as fear, anxiety and aggression.
Therefore punitive methods want to be avoided.
However, with certain dogs, I have been known to interrupt counter surfing with a no reward mark such as ‘AH AH’ and then reward the correct behaviour such as sitting or on your mat.