THE RESULT: Your dog can’t reach the table scraps anymore, can’t practice begging, can’t hunt for scraps under the table during dinnertime, and can’t get reinforced for the behavior that disrupts the family meals. She might make some noise on the leash the first few times you do this, until she discovers that it’s useless to do so. If she’s noisy, she is invisible to you over there on that leash. She has to get creative and experimental because the old jig is up, and her drama isn’t working. You now have her attention (the conditions are new because she is leashed to the couch and can’t reach the table) and new choices are possible (the old begging strategy can’t work from across the room). You have set up a new ABC. You aren’t fighting the impulse to scavenge and beg anymore. Instead, you are exploiting it—showing her how to get in on dinnertime now that her old ways are failing.

You have created a new situation in which she gets to clean up under the table after dinner if she remained quiet and relaxed on her leash throughout the meal. If she complains about it, she will remain on the leash until she decides to try being quiet, and you will have cleaned up all the scraps before you let her loose to sniff around. You will be surprised how quickly she gets on board. After a few meals, you probably won’t even need the leash anymore. She can try being loose and experiment with her choices again. Maybe if she lies quietly on the rug just a few feet away, you will let her remain closer to the table and off of the leash? Yes. Okay, dog. That’s fine. Maybe she will try coming up to you and whining just a teeny weeny bit? No; not so much, dog. Back to the leash you go for the rest of dinner.

You will let her find out that hovering or pushing or vocalizing around the table gets her leashed to the couch and results in no scrap-finding after dinner. You will let her discover that staying by the couch or lying somewhere quietly for the duration of the meal results in scrap enjoyment afterward (maybe even some of those meaty plate scrapings in her bowl). You have showed her a new way to scavenge effectively, one that works even better than the last. And in the process, you have taught her to be polite during meals in under a week’s time.

Life Lessons