You are training your dog not to counter surf, using my counter surfing video. Your dog looks like he wants the treat so badly. My recommendation in the video is to 'click' and treat your dog for anything that is appropriate behavior.
This list might include:
- Looking at the treat (but not going after it)
- Walking by the table
- Sitting by the table
- Doing something entirely different
The strategy is to motivate your dog to do other, acceptable behaviors and still get the things that he or she wants. For instance, if he wants a piece of pizza on the coffee table and he walks by the table and gets a fantastic piece of dried liver, then the act of walking by the coffee table paid off for him.
If you also use timeouts then he will learn the contrast between acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. This is accomplished by saying, "timeout" and gently moving him away from the activity for a few seconds if he gets too close to the food or object.
But . . . I have had many clients in the past question the wisdom of 'clicking' (or marking a behavior) for looking at the off-limits food or object.
The argument is that in his mind he might already be thinking about jumping on the table, grabbing a piece of food, causing a diversion and running out the back door. If you reward him while he is planning his escape, aren't you somehow rewarding the inappropriate behavior?
In short, no. The key is that you are on top of all access to things and prevent him from even getting the object and using timeouts or redirect him if he does get too close.
If he gets all good things for other behaviors, eventually his desire to do the behavior that doesn't pay off (timeout) goes away.
Let me know if you have questions in my dog training forum.
Have you seen my new dog training Emergency STOP video?
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