Teaching dog not to accept food from people - Page 2

Same way you'd teach "leave it" food refusal.  Holding your dogs leash with your dog under no command, you have someone approach offering food and you tell the dog leave it, each time he goes for it instruct the person to pull it away, until he stops going for it then YOU reward him with food from your own pocket.  Through trial/error the dog learns each time he moves towards it, it goes away, eventually he stops and hold still or ignores it, that's what you reward for.  Then once he gets the concept (Ignore the food being offered from a person, and I get food from my owner for that) the next step is to correct him if he goes for it.  They put their hand out and offer a treat, you say leave it, if he goes for it correct him, then once he ignores it reward him.  Then repeat this with different people, and add distance, and use higher value foods like hot dog. 

Also note you can do sit and down-stays with someone offering food or calling your dog, it's just another distraction.

As for breaking into the house, a good protection dog won't take a steak over biting the bad guy, you'd have to do protection training to ensure your dog would bite at all.

Using treats to socialize puppies or dogs to people-- this is important for the shy or fearful dog, it's creating a good association, but yes it does create another problem- the dog wanting to go up to everyone for food.  But I'd take that problem over a sharp fearful dog any day.

That's not quite how I'd do it.

I'd just put the dog on a down. One second, one step away, good dog gets the command to eat and I give her a morsel. Two seconds, two steps away, good dog gets the command to eat. And so on and so on, until a couple months later, the dog only eats when she gets the command to eat. I wouldn't even involve other people or corrections.  I'd use a word nobody would guess, and give it to my boarding kennel!

As for the burglar, I use a house alarm and police for that. My dog's job is not to protect my stuff. My dog is safely in a crate where the burglar won't be tempted to kill her. MY job is to protect my DOG. My dog is also a service dog, and she has to know not to eat out in public, like not to accept treats from strangers and not to vacuum in restaurants. Yuck.

Good point VM;  and not to eat outside or in a public place as my bitch started to pick up a pill of some sort on the floor at my mom's care home.  I caught her in time, god knows what it was and it stuck to her lips.  My rotti (both service dogs tried to eat my cresaunt while I was driving and I hollered LEAVE IT, scared him to death and he never did it again. That worked;  but anything new should be tried on leash first;  I would put it on the ground (like a piece of food) give the leave it command and a leash correction at the same time.  Timeing is everything.  Good luck; let us know what works.  Nanci

Train it to eat from a particular bowl, and only that bowl (as well as directly from the handler's hand). A correction is earned for eating from the improper vessel.  Boarding problem solved, I'd guess, but training sport tracking with use of food might lead to complications.  I would not agree with the idiotic idea stated in another thread, that "any dog who would eat food from anyone but the handler deserves to be shot".

The problem is for the dog not to eat food even if the master is not around and he thinks that he is not around and nobody is offering it. It just happened to be there . Kohler method mentioned above works well. You can also use e collar attached to the food via wires.  And then you teach the dog to eat only from his bowl like Darell said. Pieces of food laying around the dish . Set the dog up in a yard. Let him out and meat shocks if he picks it up.
 Accepting the food from a hand of a stranger is another training. Stranger offers food through the fence. When the dog reaches for it stranger agitates.  Or he throws food and agitates. If the handler is around or dog knows the handler is around correction is used. Dog usually becomes aggressive to strangers offering him food . So be very careful what you ask for. You may get it.
This is a harsh training but if poisoning is a issue .....I have seen dog poisoned with antifreeze in sardines can. Dog was dieing by  agonizing death of kidney failure and eventually was put down.

By the way the stuff with the chemical does not work because the dog will smell the chemical. If the chemical is not there dog will eat the food anyway. Used was Ipecac syrup.
Prager Hans
http://www.alpinek9.com

I had a dog trained to not take food from anyone.
He would only accept food from the few people that he was trained to take it from.
He was trained to come to me and sit if someone tried to give him food.
He would also not take food off the table - etc...
We started this training after obedience. (part of PPD)
It was a mixture of leash correction combined with praise and food.
He learned what to do and not do in a few sessions but proofing took about a month.
We proofed with neighbors, friends, etc...
I would also test him about once a month or so after that.

We tied about six empty pop cans to a piece of bacon or steak with fishing line.
I left some slack so the dog could get moving before the cans flew.
I hung the bacon over the edge of a counter top, went in the other room and waited.
When the cans flew, phooey - here - sit. (repeated different places, etc..)

When someone tried to give him food and he came to me - amazed many people.

Methods probably changed since then.

I do not let others feed my pup as a form of socializing. (use a toy)
I will be training my pup to avoid antifreeze.

Lee

I trained a couple of mine to refuse food once just to see if I could do it. The dogs were trained to ignore all food that wasn't in their bowls and I used the Koehler method for proofing. I can say it's one of those things should keep up with and do some reminder and refresher training every now and then. Really wasn't that particularly hard compared to some other things. But I don't allow strangers to feed my dogs treats or anything else and don't allow them to eat just whatever they find on the ground anyway. Never had a problem when I went out of town and couldn't take dogs.

I do it very similar to what Dober mentioned, only sometimes I only reward with praise, sometimes with a toy. I like to keep my dogs guessing. I prefer my personal dogs to not take food from people, but when working with a novice pet owner who needs their dog to be more friendly with strangers, food is a great tool to get a dog to warm up to people.

To own a dog who won't take food from a person is more of a working dog thing, and those of us who prefer it are typically more experienced handlers anyway.

I have no concerns over neighbors or anyone messing with their food. My dogs are not outside unattended except when I occasionally put them in my dog run, in which case they alert me if someone comes close. I suppose someone could throw something in the run at night when the dogs aren't in it, but I check my run before putting them in and I don't let them eat anything off the ground as we get geese in our yard pretty frequently.

Lees, could you please describe the soda cans arrangement in more detail?  

Sure,

I tied about 3 ft of 20 lb test mono filament line to a pop can.
Then fed the line through the tabs on the other cans and then tied the meat to the other end.
I set the cans about one foot from the end of the counter edge  and hung the bacon over the edge.
You can also cut about 3 inches of fat off of a steak and let an inch hang over or use a hot dog.

I should also clarify that the first time I did this, I let the dog approach the food and told him no.
Then I gave the the dog a piece from my hand and praise.

At this point he knew I didn't want him to have the piece on the counter.
So he tried to sneak in and quickly get the meat and beat it - the cans startled or shocked him and alerted us.

The foot or two of slack in the line gives the dog enough room to turn and not see them coming.

It's like a correction - hehe.

Lee