Dogs won't beg for your dinner with trainer's 'five-minute' behaviour fix

Dog owners can stop their pets from begging for food using a 'easy' method, according to a professional trainer. Amelia Steele, a VSA Certified Professional Dog Trainer and Behavioural Specialist, revealed the behaviour solution in a popular TikTok post.

Posting as @Ameliathedogtrainer, the trainer titled her video: "Want to stop your dog begging at the table?" In her post, she explained: "While there's food on the table, stand up every 10 to 30 seconds and feed them a treat on their bed.

"It doesn't matter if they don't get up at this point, they don't have to stay just yet. Because the bed is the only place they get fed, they will start to stay there naturally. Once they are staying there, get up every now and again to reward them for staying.

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"Over time, you can move their bed further away and space the treats out more to build distance and duration." Showing off the results, she filmed her dogs sitting on their mats shortly after they had been trained. "This was after five minutes of training."

The tip wowed social media users, and the video went viral, gaining over 3.5 million views and 370k likes. Amelia regularly shares similar tips and tricks for pet owners in her social media videos, reports the Daily Record.

In a different video, Amelia taught pet owners how to train their dogs to respond to a 'leave it' prompt in dangerous situations. She said: "Teaching your dog to 'leave it' is an absolutely life-saving skill. So today I'm going to show you how to teach your dog to 'leave it.'

"So all I'm going to do is I'm going to take one treat, and I'm going to hold it in my hand like this, and then I'm gonna show it to my dog, I'm gonna let him sniff it, and as soon as his nose comes away, I'm gonna mark yes, and I'm gonna give him a different treat. So a treat from my other hand, which I'm keeping behind my back."

Amelia continued: "I'm gonna repeat this until he's doing it really confidently. Now that he's got the hang of it, all I'm going to do is I'm gonna say the words 'leave it' every time before he takes his nose away. So I'm gonna show him the treat. 'Leave it. 'Yes', and treat."

She concluded: "Now that we've done that, I'm gonna start showing him the treat. If he goes to take it, I'm just gonna simply bring my hand up, and we're gonna try again. I'm always gonna say leave it first, so that he knows what I'm asking him to do before I show him the treat."

One viewer replied: "This and drop it have been essential for my dogs. My gsd was on a walk, and I didn’t see a chicken bone on the floor till she picked it up." Another said: "Thank so, so much! This really helped!"