Your Personal Belongings against your Dog

Your Personal Belongings against your Dog

When various other items, such as shoes, clothing, and hairbrushes are stolen,
the dog is usually displaying a lack of respect for the owner's leadership
(particularly when stealing occurs in the owner's presence), or the dog has
learned that its actions instigate an enjoyable ritual, such as a tug-o'-war. These
motivations differ somewhat from those of a dog that takes the owner's articles
and chews them when alone or when it feels excluded from social activities.

When a lack of leadership and/or tug-o'-war are central to the problem, the pet
must be taught simple command responses without punishment so as to
reestablish the owner's authority. All fondling of the pet must cease, as well as
tug-o'-war and other orally stimulating interaction between owner and dog. As in
the case of food stealing, any items likely to be stolen should be kept out of
reach. If the dog is caught trying to steal something, the dog should be given
commands to Come, Sit and Stay, and praised lavishly for its responses.



The firm "get away from that" warning also helps if followed by praise for positive
response away from the item. Yet another technique is to introduce the preamble to some kind of treatment the dog finds obnoxious, such as get out the
nail clippers as the dog looks at the food, quickly go and start to run the bath
water, get a tissue as if preparing to clean the dog's eyes, etc.