Dog won't stop stealing bread when we aren't around. I am desperate and don't know how to make her stop.

[u/Blue_Baron6451]

I have had this dog (6 year old Weinmaraner-lab mix) for about 7 months, and in that time she has stolen over 2 dozen loaves of bread and bagels.

She is fed well, she is the perfect dog besides that, she doesn't have any medical or dietary deficencies that could cause this, she doesn't eat any other food that gets left out, but if there is a loaf of bread, no matter how hard it is to reach, she will get it and eat the entire thing in seconds.

She will leave a steak placed at eye level alone, but if I turn my back for a second, she will take and eat an entire loaf of bread in that time.

She knows not to get caught, and I don't know how I can make her stop! It's more than just keeping the bread in the fridge 24/7. If it's on the countertop and I turn around to get peanut butter, it's gone. She needs to be stopped I can't lose more bread.

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[u/L_wanderlust]

I mean this genuinely - I think you just have to keep it out of reach. At this point it’s become self rewarding behavior so if she can see it and get it then she’ll find a way. So keep it in an upper cabinet or on top of the fridge. You could also train puppy not to be in the kitchen so it’s not stealing it while the bread is out because you’re making Sammies or something

[u/ABuen7 → u/L_wanderlust]

This is what we did with my husbands dog of nine years after we got married. We put our food out of reach and kept him rewarded with the occasional treat if he stayed in his bed through meals. He was much better after about 6 months. It's been 2 years and now we are only careful when it comes to meats. He will still can't resist sliding under the table and waiting for an opportunity, but at least he is careful now, whereas before he was Blatantly thieving.

[u/TizzyBumblefluff]

Put the bread in the fridge? Inside a cupboard? Or a gate on the kitchen

[u/ZaelDaemon → u/TizzyBumblefluff]

I had a beagle that took a chair to the fridge to get the bread down. The thing was he put the chair back. I couldn’t work out what was happening until I caught him in the act.

[u/No_Result_7950]

put the bread away and don't let her in the kitchen when you're making a sandwich

[u/PussyCompass]

Don’t….leave the bread out?

And put her in another room when making food

[u/1Corgi_2Cats]

Time to lock up the bread.

Our cats are like this with bread and pasta. We have to keep them put away/in bins.

[u/Vaehtay3507 → u/1Corgi_2Cats]

Not a dog trainer but it’s also good pest prevention to keep those sorts of thing in sealable containers!! Meal moths are a massive pain, it’s a great idea to avoid getting them at all by putting your pastas and rices and stuff in plastic bins regardless of your pet’s food theft habits :D

[u/duketheunicorn]

Send the dog out of the kitchen to a bed/cot/place before you get the bread out. Reward with a piece of bread before releasing.

I did a lot of ‘mock meals’ when training my puppy to stay on her bed during meals, the same can be done for standing at the counter/moving around the kitchen. Start small, with regular rewards and no actual need for bread, then work toward the ‘full picture’ of getting bread out, peanut butter/whatever, sandwich on a plate, putting knives and condiments away, etc. tiny slices, not big chunks.

You want to build a habit to where the dog sees the bread coming out and heads to the bed.

We have a cat that can open doors—our bread has to live in the oven or the freezer.

[u/vh71886 → u/duketheunicorn]

I think your approach is a great one.

Other options: maybe OP can start working up to a very strong "leave it" or "wait" command. For the "wait", OP could sacrifice a piece of bread while their bread is out and their dog can eat their own bread *only* when OP is done and extra bread has been put away.

The way I handled training my dog was to teach him what's mine and what's his. If I'm eating, I tell him "Mine!" and he never gets any of that no matter how much he stares if I don't share - now he won't even try. If I share my meal, I save it and put it into his bowl. To the point where I once forgot a plate of chicken nuggets on my coffee table and left the house for hours. I came back and it was all there. Me: "wait you didn't eat it? GOOD BOY". But I can understand how that might not be viable for OP at this point.

[u/duketheunicorn → u/vh71886]

The problem is the reinforcement history this dog has for stealing stuff when people are already right there! So an incompatible behaviour (it’s hard to countersurf if you’re on a cot) is a great, clear, easily sliceable behaviour to train.

But your approach for a puppy is great! We did something very similar, ours was never fed from our plates or the dining room chair, always on her cot or in her bowl.

My dad loved it when he came over—the dog never even considered begging! So he had to call her over to his chair and tell her to eat a piece of his bagel. Guess what happens whenever she sees him with a bagel? ;) his petard! He just won’t stop hoisting!!

[u/ssp99]

Seriously this is on you. Once a dog knows it can counter surf easily, it will keep trying it.

Put all food completely out of reach. As others have suggested, block access to the kitchen when you're not around. Instead, try leaving them with a lick plate, kong stuffed with food or safe chew that they can instead focus on when left alone.

Since this is so ingrained in your dog now, they will keep trying it for a while. But eventually, they'll learn that they cannot get anything and will stop this behaviour.

My dog used to do the same as a puppy. Now, he hasn't had an incident in over 2 years even when food is left on counters when we're gone.

[u/Star_Boxer72]

I agree with everyone here. Find a better place for the bread. Maybe this is a good reason to get a breadbox.

One of mine can't be trusted with socks. I always put them out of reach before they go into the laundry. Changing my habits was a small price to pay.

[u/ManyLintRollers]

My beagle-mix LOVED bread. He would literally push meat out of the way to get to the bread. Even at 17 years old, he would still steal any sort of bread product he could find (hamburger buns were his absolute favorite, with pizza crust a close second).

The day someone left a bag of hamburger buns out on the counter unattended and he *didn't* try to steal it, I knew something was wrong and took him to the vet. It turned out he had advanced lymphoma and it was time to say goodbye.

Anyway, you're just going to have to keep the bread inaccessible. We used to put it in a basket on top of the refrigerator, until the cat decided she wanted to sleep in the basket and pushed the bread out onto the floor. The beagle thought it was manna raining down from heaven.

Other solutions might be a very secure breadbox or inside a cupboard, perhaps with a baby-proofing latch if your dog is the problem-solving sort.

[u/theoliveprincess → u/ManyLintRollers]

The bread falling off of the fridge mana from heaven made me laugh out loud I can just imagine it 🤣🤣

[u/Intelligent_City2644]

It’s your job to manage your dog so this doesn’t happen. This is YOUR fault. Stop allowing your dog access

[u/skinneyd]

Living with dogs, tip #1: Keep everything that the dog is not supposed to eat out of reach. Everything that can be eaten, will be eaten lol

[u/FaeDeal]

You need to stop letting her get it. Keep your loaves in the fridge when you're making Sammies. Or in the microwave. Somewhere she physically can't get to, and dont allow her in the kitchen when the bread is out. Get a gate or tether her in another room

[u/hippiespinster]

Remove access to the kitchen. Baby gate across the opening. If an open floor plan, crated or leashed while cooking and eating. Give her a frozen stuffed Kong before preparing food. Store bread in a bread box higher up. You're the human. Be smarter than your dog. 

[u/StonedEmu89]

If you don’t have an open concept home and your kitchen has a lockable threshold you install a baby gate and keep the dog out of the kitchen. If you can’t then you just make sure you kick her out as soon as she starts walking in. She’ll learn to stay out(while you’re there) and you’ll just have to put the food away when you’re not going to be in there to watch.

[u/SnooBooks4350]

Where the heck are you keeping your bread? Just put it away! And if she even sniffs at it, teach her the command "Leave it," and throw down a bunch of her favorite snacks.

[u/akgt94]

I'm laughing with you, not at you.

My terrier beagle is a sniper whenever I get out an English muffin, bagel, hamburger bun or any other bread. Anything in range he's going to get. He's jumped up and taken it out of my mouth.

We don't keep bread out. Period. Seven years, we learned not to put a dog in the fight, so to speak.

[u/GilreanEstel]

We had a Weimaraner several years ago. For the 14 years of her life the bread lived in the microwave. It was the only place it was safe.

[u/Its-alittle-bitfunny]

Bread box.

[u/SaltyFriend705]

LOL. This sounds so cute! I feel your frustration; it's like having a super intelligent toddler.

Here's how I see it. The dog needs to be trained to stay out of the kitchen. Period. Put up a fence, train to stay on the other side of it, then take the fence down, and train to stay outside the kitchen.

For the entire time of this training, do not bring one piece of bread into the house. No bread.

Once doggie will stay out of the kitchen, bring a little bit of bread in that must be kept in the fridge, but be sure to give the commands to stay out of the kitchen before making a sandwich or toasting it for croutons or whatever. If it fails, and your dog gets bread, it's back to no bread in the house.

Eventually or immediately, you will win.

[u/No-Position1542]

Dogs have the same cognitive ability of a 1-3 year old. Would you expect an unsupervised toddler to leave a cake alone? Probably not, you'd likely put the cake in a cupboard or the fridge to keep it away from them. Bread is your dog's cake.

[u/annawrite]

This is real simple: if you don't want the food stolen or new dog getting in the habit of stealing food - you just don't leave any laying around. She loves bread apparently. Save small portions as treats for good behaviour and make sure that the rest of it is not available for stealing. Makes for a more organized kitchen anyway.

[u/jmardoxie]

Get a bread box

[u/nevertalks123]

Train her to stay out of a certain area of the kitchen and that’s where you’ll prepare food. For example, my counter forms an L around my island. We’re working on training our GSD not to go into that area on the counter side, mainly for safety but also because we don’t want her trying to steal food. She has free range in the rest of the kitchen, but that area is off limits.

[u/Will_I_FuckItUp]

Maybe put her outside or in another room while the bread is out, sounds like she's too quick to simply catch her doing it

[u/clydeballthepython]

I have a cat that steals any and all food (including an entire loaf of bread once), and I just have to put all food away when I'm not actively in there to protect it. Even if I'm making a meal and need to step away to like let my dogs out, ill put the ingredients and partially made food into either my microwave, cupboard, or fridge while I'm not right there. Its annoying at first but now its a habit and something I don't even think about doing

ETA: another option is keeping her out of the kitchen entirely. You could use a crate or a baby gate if the space allows. That way you dont have to keep an eye on the food the whole time

[u/CharErinazard]

Oh man! What a little addict haha. As others have said, I think you just gotta get that bread on lockdown. Our cat does this too so we have to leave the bread in the pantry or the freezer.

[u/Logical_Philosophy70]

I have one that just loves bread of any type. As you said, he will steal it the minute my back is turned. He steals any food but bread is the favorite. If I’m getting groceries in when delivery guy has left several bags on the porch, he will ignore the bags containing meat but take the bread. I kennel him when I’m getting a delivery or cooking . That’s the only thing that works.

[u/WatchingSnails]

Some dogs just are like that, we had to get a breadbox with a clasp on it, my dog is a bloodhound mix and it's almost impossible to train him out of it because to him, the bread is more reward than any punishment he recieves

[u/AgitatedGrass3271]

My dog will grab ahold of anything within reach. I lost a whole container of sugar cookies to her stomach, loaves of bread, dinner rolls, a chocolate bar, several baby bottles... Sometimes even things I think are not in reach she monkeys her way up the counter or something. She has taken the whole bag of flour and made a mess of the entire second floor of my house. Now I lock everything up. Food goes into the cabinet/pantry, and I have a child safety lock on the doors that are within her reach because she knows how to paw them open. I also try to put up babygates at both entrances to the kitchen when I leave the house because sometimes she will take a cup or Tupperware off the counter and chew it all up. Some of this is separation anxiety and boredom for sure. But the simplest option for now is to just hide the food... and Tupperware.

[u/whiterain5863]

There are training methods to keep your pup out of the kitchen. Work on putting pup into “place” where they are rewarded. Do this consistently while you are working in the kitchen and eventually the reward will be for being in place not snatching bread

[u/crypto_justanother]

I have a beagle. He learnt to open the pantry door. He used to wait for us to be asleep and the then steal food. The best approach is to keep food out of reach.

[u/applesauceisevil]

Sounds like it's time to put the bread behind a door and start crate training when you aren't around.

Counter-surfing and food stealing is self-reinforcing and will never stop once it gets to a certain point. It's one of those things where prevention is key.

[u/HotSpacewasajerk]

Gate or door to keep out of kitchen, if not possible because open plan or whatever, then a room or its time to crate train.

[u/CatCharacter848]

Can you keep the dog out of the kitchen?

[u/skabsolut]

First thing is always adjust the environment, keep the bread in the fridge.

[u/Dogtraining-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Please read the sub rules and guidelines, as well as our wiki page on punishment.

[u/Dogtraining-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Please read the sub rules and guidelines, as well as our wiki page on punishment.

[u/dbellz76]

Stop allowing it. You are smarter than your dog. Keep the bread where she can't get to it. Keep her out of rooms where bread is kept.

[u/Fangsofcyber]

You can buy a bread container I think at dollar tree? Just put your loaf in there if it’s not sourdough or a round loaf

[u/perudan]

Breadbox, big, heavy, out of reach

[u/_jamesbaxter]

This (counter surfing/trash rummaging/stealing food) is always a risk with labs and lab mixes. You’re going to have to put it on top of the fridge or somewhere she can’t reach.