Such the good girl

[Ravenbird]

Thanks for the fat rendering instructions - may try this next time!

Love (and prefer) that style of ears if I can help it. Beautiful dog...

Thank you

Yes, A stranger could walk up and feed them whatever they wanted to.

It's extremely difficult to teach a dog not to take food that is offered. Hard enough to refuse found scraps on the ground, but offered by hand from a human they can't wrap their head around why they should say no. It's an actual exercise in Mondio and French ring trials.

Both the dogs in our house ignore the cat food kibble which is out 24/7 on a window ledge, about the same height as the countertop. Either dog could easily put feet up and help themselves, but they just don't. We never taught it, they just know better.

 

[BGpa]

Love (and prefer) that style of ears if I can help it. Beautiful dog...





My new girl Agatha has absolutely zero testing on random food treats found outside the house in the yard and a damn good nose. If someone was to toss a hotdog out there right now in the admittedly too-tall grass - She would spot it before me and it would be in her tummy before I could do jack about it.

She will gladly take anything given to her by ANY random stranger that offered it to her as well.


Because of her lack of testing there and definite lack of training - I need to do my part to help her figure it all out.

That training is hard and requires constant testing and then more testing.


The last pair that I 'thought' I had properly trained and 'proofed / tested' enough times to be pretty sure they would not accept any food from strangers OR eat anything random they found laying in the yard both failed miserably the day the one Animal Control guy saw them out in the front yard on a pee break and stopped to say 'hello' to us.

Guy stopped in front of the house, got out and walked right up to the edge of the yard, squatting down a bit before calling the girls to him. They ran up to him like he was their long lost soulmate.

The guy did ask if it was ok as he reached into a pocket and pulled out a few jerky treats for them and I told him to go ahead. (knowing my girls would not take any food from a stranger like that because I had 'tested' them a bunch...)

They both quickly scarfed down the treats that their long lost soul mate brought with him...


Was a good wake up call for me that given the right circumstances - Yes, A stranger could walk up and feed them whatever they wanted to.

That is training I'd like to know more about. Still working on 100% "no dobergoat snarfing on trail..." She has a very good leave it, but I have to be eyes on and Since hotdogs are the treat that makes her literally drool like a mastiff...

I worry about weirdos who leave poison on the trail or what gets dropped in open space by house...half dead rats with warfarin the hawks wont touch, poison tossed out there by people who fear coyotes...
I use the stim in the form of Hand from God on forbidden items like woodchips, dead animals, etc...but I have to catch her in the act, or I fear creating a generalized suspicious belief about just sniffing, which I encourage.

Btw we did some rattlesnake aversion training for the second time. Different trainer, less impressed with actually, same idea- see, smell, hear the snake and approach= zap. I thought his timing was imperfect but I was a bit rushed too.
One thing he said is Bonnie was like a K9, she trusts and obeys so well on the heel I could walk her right ovrt the snake...
But what you want is the signal of alert by hanging back, pulling away, crossing to the other side...so it was good practice for me to watch her body language closely- which I do, and by encouraging her to range ahead on trail can assess more quickly when and what she is alerting on.

 

[MyBuddy]

Annie does not counter surf. I've never seen her put her feet on the counter or Island. I've left food up there, walked away and sometimes came back thinking, oh my! She could have got that! But she didn't. Even her own Raw patties that I have momentarily left alone she did not touch.

Now.

That said.

A few weeks ago I made myself a scrambled egg, ham and cheese sandwich on those skinny bread. If you've ever seen them. They are cardboard thin LOL but perfect for me because I don't like a lot of bread.

Well I had it sitting here on this table
( posing Annie so you can see the level the table is at)
...while I sat on the couch to watch TV.

Something distracted me and I walked away.

When I came back.

You guessed it.

It was gone!

I think I had three bites out of it. She just stood there with no guilt like....that was for me, right?

 

[Aaron56]

Thanks for the fat rendering instructions - may try this next time!


Thank you


It's extremely difficult to teach a dog not to take food that is offered. Hard enough to refuse found scraps on the ground, but offered by hand from a human they can't wrap their head around why they should say no. It's an actual exercise in Mondio and French ring trials.

Both the dogs in our house ignore the cat food kibble which is out 24/7 on a window ledge, about the same height as the countertop. Either dog could easily put feet up and help themselves, but they just don't. We never taught it, they just know better.

We had a thread a while back where a members dog ate something in the yard that caused a lot of problems. Several other threads related to members dogs eating stuff they were not supposed to and the owner having to deal with considerable stress and sometimes expense...

Scares the bejesus out of me and makes me want to work harder so I can have happy endings like you experienced.