Puppies can have some behaviors you find less than desirable. The newest addition to my home, Maverick, had the annoying behavior of letting out high-pierced yelping and jumping up and at me whenever I was preparing food for him and my other dogs. The entire time I was getting their food ready. So I decided I would rather teach him more polite behavior now. And we worked on it every time I got their food ready for the last week. I'm so proud of him because now, he sits their quietly the whole time and waits for me to present his bowl to him. No more breaking my ear drum or annoying the other dogs with his bouncing! So how did I do it? It's quite simple. I took what he really loves (the food) and used it to reward the behavior I would rather see (all paws on the ground with no yelping or barking), while not acknowledging the behavior I wanted to extinguish. You see, a lot of the behaviors we consider undesirable or naughty are their attempt to get something they want . And because sometimes we are just tired, busy, or don't want to deal with it at the time, we give them exactly what they want just to get them to be quiet, to stop jumping, etc. So of course your dog then thinks " oh cool jumping and barking got me the attention I wanted! I'm gonna do that every time I want something!". Yep, we create our own monsters, or in some cases are for ed to deal with the behaviors someone else created or that a dog developed to survive for the dogs we adopt. But the good news is, with consistency and being clear about the behaviors we would prefer, our dogs are capable of learning to change their behaviors.
So how did I correct this feeding time behavior? You can do it like this:
While you are getting their food ready, completely ignore them if they are doing the crazy behavior. Then as soon as they give you a split second of quiet and have all paws on the ground say "yes" and turn around and give them a piece of their food. If they stay quiet with all paws on the ground, intermittently keep turning around and rewarding it. Soon they will sit quietly the whole time until you have their bowl ready without you having to treat and the reward is just that they get their bowl.
