Pet dogs more likely to steal food if they think you can't see

Lukin said:
I thought of my dog Ivory, a former alcoholic. When I went to get something, he would sit on my sofa spot and steal my red wine.

How he managed to stop drinking I have no idea.
Click to expand...

Did you take him to rehab?
 
my dogs steals, esp the huntaway...the pointer is a good girl, she's more obedient
 
Oh yeah...Monkeys are notorious for stealing....

as for my Doggie, she does not steal...my Cat does, even my glass of iced tea....sticks his nose in it, knocks the glass over and steals an ice cube....(knocks the ice cube from one end of the house to the other before it melts)...honestly, there have been times when I've almost called the Mental Hospital for Cats.....
 
rockin'robin said:
Oh yeah...Monkeys are notorious for stealing....

as for my Doggie, she does not steal...my Cat does, even my glass of iced tea....sticks his nose in it, knocks the glass over and steals an ice cube....(knocks the ice cube from one end of the house to the other before it melts)...honestly, there have been times when I've almost called the Mental Hospital for Cats.....
Click to expand...

:hmm:
 
My dog, Java tend to steal cat food overnight. I had to send her to crate as "punishment". She stopped doing that for few weeks, and still doing it again. I send her to crate again. She hate crate so much, but it works for a while. I just hope one day my dog Java leave cat food alone forever. Seems impossible?! lol
 
rockin'robin said:
Oh yeah...Monkeys are notorious for stealing....

as for my Doggie, she does not steal...my Cat does, even my glass of iced tea....sticks his nose in it, knocks the glass over and steals an ice cube....(knocks the ice cube from one end of the house to the other before it melts)...honestly, there have been times when I've almost called the Mental Hospital for Cats.....
Click to expand...

:laugh2:
 
When I was growing up, my beagle stole a cinnamon roll off my breakfast plate while I was reading the newspaper. lol

I'd have two on the plate. I'd eat one as I read, then grasp for the next one and it was gone. I looked over at my dog's rug in the corner and there she is, scarfing down a cinnamon roll. lol
 
My Alusky Storm would steal food of the table when you werent looking. She was slick at it too. She would sit there with her head facing parallel to the edge, and when you turned she would just tilt her head enough to snatch it with her tongue and sit back straight...trying to be so innocent.
 
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ISzf2pryI]Denver Official Guilty Dog Video www.facebook.com/guiltydog - YouTube[/ame]
 
I had client that was blind and she had two cats one was real a fat cat .
I found out why when I gave my client her lunch one day , fat cat was on the table and the cat very carefully took food off the plate by using his claws and he did more than one time .
 
In seriousness, just sharing this.... in relation to the video-
the body language being displayed by the dogs there, I see it as a series of appeasement gestures - a "look away" is an actual formal communication signal in a dog signaling along the lines of - "friendly/no ill intent"; "excitement or arousal-reducing"; "please stay away" or "please calm down"

"closed or squinty eyes" is also a way the dog shows friendli-ness or non-threatening... a grin with closed or squinty eyes, the mouth corners stretched so far back and showing all the teeth like in the vid - that can actually be a dog smile or another non-threatening gesture.

Dogs don't know anything about "stealing" as a moral or physical human thing; they as a group are carnivorous scavengers and so they have evolved to search for and find things to investigate in case those things are edible. Domestication has not changed this evolutionary tendency.
Dogs respond as they do when we find them with something ripped up/shredded/eaten - because they feel something is wrong and feel the physical and chemical changes we make in our bodies when we are upset. They -can - learn to associate "I ate this boot or cat food bag" with "person is upset" but have no idea why the two things are connected, just that they are. So then, they display the canine body language because that is how they communicate and communication = survival.
 
Back
Top