# Ignoring food?



## Chicagocanine (Aug 7, 2008)

I'm just wondering if anyone has a good method (or links) for teaching a dog to ignore food that is left out or is on the ground. I know how to train a "leave it" but I want to know how to train a dog to ignore food without a "leave it" cue or when you are not present. For example I hear people say how they can leave a steak on a coffee table and leave the room and come back and it's still there. Or if the dog is in the yard and they find something edible while the person is not present they don't touch it. How do you train that?


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## doggiedad (Dec 2, 2007)

teaching my dog not to take food off the table was
a part of teaching him not to counter surf. i would
place food on the edge of the counter and leave the 
room. when my dog went for it i would say "no" or
"don't do that" or hey, you don't take food off the counter".
sometimes i placed food on the sit of a chair. then
i started placing food on the floor. at some point i 
starting leaving the house with the food in easy to
get to positions. i slowly increased my time of being
away from the house.


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## doggiedad (Dec 2, 2007)

i use to give a stranger a treat to give to my dog.
when my dog went for it i said "no".


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

No joke, I took raw meat and threw it over the fence and worked each dog, some require more work. My female GSD will not take food for anyone and showed no interest in the meat. I wish they were all like her. My boss gave her a treat, she took it, then spit it out..I picked up the sand treat and she took it no problem.


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## Chicagocanine (Aug 7, 2008)

llombardo said:


> No joke, I took raw meat and threw it over the fence and worked each dog, some require more work.


Worked them how?


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## JackandMattie (Feb 4, 2013)

This is a great question. My mom trained our dog not to accept food from strangers or pick up stray food... But I have no idea how she did that. I should ask her. I know she learned it at the club. It's something I've always had in mind, for my own dogs' safety, but I'm just not there yet in my training skills. 


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## llombardo (Dec 11, 2011)

Chicagocanine said:


> Worked them how?


A constant leave it and correction if they went for it. The goldens were really bad I'm going to do it a few times this year with different things. I didn't touch the meat at all.


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## Blanketback (Apr 27, 2012)

I found this for you, Michael Ellis on Food Refusal:


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## OriginalWacky (Dec 21, 2011)

You can probably google "training a default leave it" for some pretty good articles and videos on how to train this. But make sure you're being fair, it's going to take a LOT of work to get there were a face-high steak is worth leaving alone for a dog. (I know, because I have done it, and it's not easy.)


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