Dog Begging - Why Begging For Food Should Never Be Allowed

The one thing you can count on with your dog is that he will absolutely insist on eating whatever it is that you and the rest of the family are having for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! And without training to teach them otherwise, begging for food, while seemingly cute in the beginning, will become a complete and total annoyance to everyone in due time.

Why Is Begging A Bad Thing?

Once you decided to raise a dog, your family officially became a "pack". This means that your dog looks up to you and the rest of the household as a natural hierarchy, with a leader at the top. When you allow your dog to beg, even if it seems innocent, this behavior becomes a form of control that the animal is gaining from the pack.

In the beginning, begging for food, or begging for other stimulations such as a belly rub, is obviously adorable, but in time, the dog's actions become more and more demanding, thus becoming aggressive and unbearable as he grows into an adult.

How Aggressive Will Your Dog Become?

Many of you might be reading this and are thinking to yourself that your well-behaved doggie would never become aggressive while begging for food and nip at your hand. However, I beg to differ.

A perfect example would be recalling the experience that a friend of mine had with his dog. For several years he would hand-feed his puppy bits of food whenever he himself was eating. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks in between - all were shared with his dog.

Eventually, his dog grew into an adult and was a fairly large size. The mistake that my friend made was not realizing that he was actually programming the dog to be a dominant leader every time the animal expected to be fed, and my friend of course would share his food without thinking.

The begging became a big problem and when he decided to train the dog not to beg for food, the animal got extremely aggressive and literally jumped on the table to snatch up a plate of food, and while biting into my friend's hand.

Proper Training To Eliminate Begging

Although the true story above was on the extreme side of dominant, aggressive behavior, as a result of begging, the problem is indeed real. And although your dog may not be so demanding right now, the key is to completely eliminate the possibility of begging by proper training early in your puppy's life.

The process is simple. All you have to do is train your dog to be still and remain in a specific area of the house when the family is eating their meals. It may take a little time, but imagine your dog sitting quietly, remaining in the sit position, all the while you and your family are eating dinner, with him not moving until you allow him to do so.