How Can I Prevent My Dog From Counter Cruising/Surfing?
Question:
Any suggestions regard Counter Cruiser’s. Two of my golden retrievers are terrible. They also break down baby gates to get to our cats’ food. I leave free choice dry food for the cats. Two golden’s eat Nutro and one is 12 and she has developed food allergies in the last year. She is on a hydrolyzed protein diet (precription from the vet. It is helping.)
Rosalind
ANSWER:
Hi there Rosalind,
Good questions! And I am very glad to hear the prescription food is helping the Golden with food allergies – it can make such a difference in their quality of life!
Counter Cruising or Surfing (I hadn’t heard the term Counter Cruising before – good one!) is a tough problem to break, as there is usually an instant reward – whatever yummy treats they find and gobble up!
Aside from diligence on your part not to leave food out, I have heard of people setting traps to dissuade problem Cruisers from continuing their habit. These traps usually involve stacking noisy metal pots on top of a baking sheet so when the dog jumps up to grab the ‘treat’ placed invitingly on the sheet, the pots topple onto the ground around the dog. I am sure this system does work, but wonder what the Humane Society would say about purposely scaring your dog. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of retraining/aversion therapy?
Can you lock your dogs out of the kitchen when you leave them or while making dinner? What about training them to stay out of the kitchen entirely by using positive reinforcement?
Keeping them out of the cat food has similar problems – there is that instant reward as soon as they break down the gate! What about putting your cat’s food up higher, say at the back of the kitchen counter? Or putting the food in a room with a door and having a cat door installed? The dogs might be able to knock the baby gate down but learning to open a door might slow them down a bit!Retraining the dogs is possible, just very difficult when there is instant gratification and reward for their bad behavior. Finding a work-around might be the best way to retrain them and if they find that food is not left on the counter anymore, they will stop the behavior entirely in time.
Any other ideas out there? This is a problem I have little personal experience with!
Ann
Go ahead and ask us! Click the button below.
Teach a very strong “Off!” command and don’t leave anything tempting out on the counters — set your dog up for success.
The pots and pans are a good aversion technique, but may not work for all dogs. It may scare some timid dogs too much (they may urinate in fear, causing a mess for the owner to clean up), and it may not scare some dogs at all – they’d simply push the pots and pans aside and grab the snack.
Also, if you own your home, consider installing a cat door in a bedroom door, keep the door closed, and leave the cat food in that bedroom.
I agree about using a smaller door for the cat that the dogs can’t go through. Make sure you test it because dogs have this skill that is wherever the head can go,the rest of the body follows. I have small dogs,but you’d be surprised at what they can squeeze through. I sure was.
If you must keep food on the counter,use Tupperware or similar plastic items that are difficult to open. Test them first. Try to leave things as far back on the counter as possible. The snap traps will help. I don’t like the pots and pans idea because big dogs can do damage to themselves. Plus you may have to retrieve them from odd places.