Thursday, September 24, 2009

Dog Advice Needed...

...you all know, have seen and have heard about our 100 pound black lab Shadow, right? Well, we first got him back in January 2008. When we got him, he had HORRIBLE manners!!! One of the first few weeks, we had him, we'd steamed a head of cauliflower and he got in the pot (without knocking it over) and ate the WHOLE THING!!! Another time, he ate half a cake I left cooling on the stove and don't worry, he's eaten plenty of Matt's dinners that have been left on the counter (Matt doesn't understand the concept of come-and-get it means RIGHT NOW!!!). After losing enough suppers to him, Matt and I wised up, we started putting things in the microwave or on top of it, you know, places that he couldn't reach. So after working with him for awhile, he stopped doing that, so we got brave and would leave stuff on the counter until we were done eating to put it away, all was well until last night...

...after a long hard day of work, I slaved away making meatballs (come on, meatballs aren't that hard to make...I'm just going for the dramatic effect) for some delicious meatball sandwiches. Matt calls me as he's rounding the corner and says, "Babe, I'm almost home!" I quickly make our sandwiches trying to surprise him...it had all the fixings...cheese, marinara, a little Ranch, a little Parmesan cheese...oh they were delicious! Matt comes in and heads to the bathroom to wash his hands while I go into the other room with my dinner. Suddenly, I hear it, the paws on the counter...thud, thud..."SHADOW!!!" He comes running into the other room right away LICKING HIS LIPS!?! I run in the kitchen and see Matt's sandwich split in half with half the meatballs gone (Shadow was in for a surprise though because I put a jalapeno in some of the meatballs). I...was...devastated...Luckily, I'd made plenty of extra so Matt still got his dinner but Shadow was in trouble.

I didn't think too much about it other than he just thought the smell was so good he had to taste it. Then tonight, I made bacon and tomato biscuits (we ran out of bread because someone thought they could eat all the hoagie buns with PBJ for snacks last night and I'm NOT talking about Shadow...nudge, nudge, cough, cough-Matt). So sure enough, we sit down to eat and we hear those paws...thud, thud...I yell at him and luckily, he didn't eat anything. Then someone came over to give us a bid on our bathroom, so we just put the dogs in the bedroom and as soon as we let them out, he went straight to the counter again, this time Matt looked in the kitchen, Shadow looked at Matt, Matt looked at Shadow, Shadow knew he was in for it and took off to the basement for his cage, Matt followed him and locked him up. I cleaned up the kitchen, took a shower and went to be the good mom and let him out, he beat me upstairs and sure enough he was up on the counter again!?!

So now I'm at a loss, I have NO idea why he's doing it, I haven't changed his food or how much he's eating, I don't know if its just because the things I cooked the past two nights had strong smells as opposed to pasta and chicken that don't have strong, delicious smells like meatballs and bacon. So any and all dog owners, if you have ANY idea why he's doing this or how to cure it (although we thought it was), please leave a comment and let me know! For the meantime, I guess we'll go back to cleaning up the kitchen and dinner BEFORE we eat.

6 comments :

Cecilia said...

:D What a stinker!!!! I have no tips for ya. I am sorry. We had a dalmatian who would always steal food. We just had to watch where we put our plates.

Angie said...

Hmm that sounds really annoying. Reminds me of Christmas Story when all the dogs come thru the house and eat the Thanksgiving turkey.

Your post makes me glad I have a little 20 pound dog ;)

Anonymous said...

You need to set a trap. It's how we stopped Butch from doing this. Once, he jumped up to grab a piece of chicken off of a plate. But in the process, he knocked the entire plate to the floor. It hit the ceramic tile and shattered, making a ton of noise and scaring the bejesus out of Butch. And he no longer jumps up on the countertop. We found out later that that is actually a training technique - setting a trap to scare the dog when they jump up and then they won't do it anymore. Try rocks in tin cans maybe?

Meredith said...

He's definitely a stinker. I agree with Kristal though--a trap might help!

Kevin and Katie said...

I am with Kristal on setting a trap. Once you have scared them they remember it. Our younger dog Lucy had this problem with jumping over the gate and getting out of the kitchen when we were gone which was really frustrating for a while. She was smart enough that when she heard us at the door she would jump back over so it would look like she was still in the kitchen. We watched her do that from the front window a few times :) Anyway so onetime quite by accident the baby gate fell on her (she wasn't hurt) and made such a racket that both of our dogs have a fear of the baby gate and years later they still will not go near it. So, put the fear in Shadow. Good luck!
Side unrelated note check out this website when you have time. http://www.canningacrossamerica.com

I Love Brownies said...

The only tip I have is to start setting a plate for him at the dinner table. :-)