barking when adults eat dinner

Hi all

The minute myself and hubby sit down for dinner Ted our 11 week old cavalier starts going mental barking at us. We do not feed him from our plates and he always gets his dinner before ours. How can we stop this?

I have started to pick him up and put him infront of his own food bowl so he will understand thats where his dinner is, is this the right thing to do?

A dog will not understand the link between his empty bowl and your eating dinner (after all, the food is over with you!) and the abstract connection that he has already eaten and only gets to eat from a bowl. I'd suggest feeding him before dinner and then crating him while you eat or put him in a room where he is out of sight. If you want him in the same room, you will need to train him (which will take time!) to stay in say his basket. You won;t be able to do this productively for several months yet as he is too young.

After all he is only 11 weeks old -- he is only a baby. He is barking because he wants attention from you when you have turned your attention totally away from him -- to your meal. If you indulge him by turning your attention back to him -- and that INCLUDES going and moving him o his bowl -- you reward him with the attention he craves. So you need to totally ignore this behaviour even if it drives you crazy. That is why it is perhaps better to confine him somewhere out of sight after he has been fed, or crate him with a toy.

Hi Karlin

I had tried keeping his treats to when we sat down to our dinner so he would have something to concentrate on but it didn't really work, I suppose your right the best way to do this is to leave him in the kitchen while we eat in the living room.

I suppose wishful thinking that these things happen overnight!! Thanks a million for your advice.

Yep, just ignore him. He is still just a wee baby and he will grow out of it.

We have the same problem with Candi but we are already praticing what karlin and caraline are saying. We're training her to go to her "cushion" when we're eating and if she come's over to us and start's barking or whinning we tell her "cushion", if she does it again then she gets lifted over to her cushion, told "cushion" and "stay". By that point she usually stays but there has been a few times she will test us and come over and to that she is ignored

I have read that you should have your dinner 1st and leave the dogs dinner until after you have eaten yours, (something to do with letting him know where he stands in the pack) so I would have him in bed while your eating yours and then take him out for his.