# Creating a Cookie Monster?



## curly_DC (Nov 27, 2011)

Okay, so I'm turning my sweet little dog into a cookie monster. 

I didn't give him treats for almost a month after I first got him. He's 2 years old. I cracked under pressure when I was getting his onesies at Target while he was recovering from neutering and bought him those awful Cesar soft and chewy treats, shaped like a heart, a bone, and paw. 7 calories each. 

I never heard a dog treat referred to as a "cookie" until I read it on this forum.

When Sergio would finish all of his dinner, usually by 7:30 p.m., his Purina Pro Plan Chicken and Rice kibble, I started to praise him and say, "Good boy. Do you want a cookie?"

Well, my goodness, how his little face gets this expression, like "A cookie? Really, for me?? A cookie??" 

I have also been giving him Zuke's mini chicken treats in a dog puzzle, where I hide the treats and he uses his paw or nose to find them. Takes him about 5minutes to do that. 

I no longer give him the Cesar treats, just Zuke's and Charlee Bear's. The Zuke's are only for morning. The Charlee Bear's are the "cookies" after dinner, and sometimes to persuade him outdoors when the ground is wet to go potty. 

My question is this. 

He's turning into a little cookie monster. I feel like even though he is eating all of his kibble at breakfast and dinner, and finding the treats in his puzzle games in his ex pen in the morning, and getting 3 Charlee Bear cookies for dessert after dinner, he more and more is sniffing around my hands and getting up on his hind legs when I open the "cookie" kitchen pantry, turning into a little cookie beggar. And when I pop popcorn or eat a bowl of cereal for a snack, he sniffs around my food. 

What do I do now? 

Should I just cut out the treats all together?


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## jabojenny (Sep 18, 2011)

I'm sure I'm no help, but we call Timmy "the mooch." I don't give him any treats until he's done eating but he gets treats when we practice obedience and I usually give him something to chew on at night when we're on the couch before bed, for now it's his Himalyan Chew, he LOVES it. I don't know why Sergio would be sniffing except that he might smell the treats on your hand? I carry beef jerky in my jacket pocket or jean pocket and I know Timmy can smell them because he tries to get in my jacket pocket or he runs on my back when they're in my pant pocket. I've been trying to get him to do his obedience stuff when we're out walking or not in our usual place that's why I carry it around. My friends dogs also know I carry them when we meet up to walk because they smell my jacket pocket too.


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## curly_DC (Nov 27, 2011)

I wash my hands though with soap and water after I give him the treats or after we come in from a walk. 

I don't know if I'll give him a bully stick again, which I bought for him after the groomer's. 

It was really messy and yucky, even though, yeah he loved it. 

I don't think he at all made the connection that he received the treat for enduring 2 hours of grooming. It just gave him that taste of meat!!! 

I don't know if he makes the connection of getting cookies after he eats all of his dinner, as a reward. 

Maybe the Charlee Bear treats are like potato chips, and he can't have just 3!!!


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

curly_DC said:


> My question is this.
> 
> He's turning into a little cookie monster. I feel like even though he is eating all of his kibble at breakfast and dinner, and finding the treats in his puzzle games in his ex pen in the morning, and getting 3 Charlee Bear cookies for dessert after dinner, he more and more is sniffing around my hands and getting up on his hind legs when I open the "cookie" kitchen pantry, turning into a little cookie beggar. And when I pop popcorn or eat a bowl of cereal for a snack, he sniffs around my food.
> 
> ...


Kodi gets a lot of "cookies" in the course of the day, but they are always given in the context of short raining sessions. He always works for them... there are never any "free" hand-outs. Also, he knows very well who are the "soft touches" in our house. He wouldn't ever THINK of trying to beg for what I'm eating, let alone interfere with it directly. With DH, OTOH... he's got his nose up there in the chip bag the whole time he's snacking. But Dave allows it, and I don't.:biggrin1: They can CERTAINLY learn to be polite and not try to take your food unless something is offered.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

curly_DC said:


> I wash my hands though with soap and water after I give him the treats or after we come in from a walk.
> 
> I don't know if I'll give him a bully stick again, which I bought for him after the groomer's.
> 
> ...


I'm with you completely on the bully sticks!uke:

And, no, he CAN'T make the connection between "finishing his dinner" and getting a treat.


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## misstray (Feb 6, 2011)

Brody gets treated multiple times a day. He gets them for putting up with things like combing, teeth brushing, going to the bathroom in the right spot, etc. etc. What is funny is that he seems to have figured out that he gets treats for putting up with unpleasant things, so he'll try to push the boundaries and go running over to the treat bag after almost everything. It cracks me up and I admit, I'll sometimes give him a treat just because it was so funny even though he didn't "endure" anything unpleasant.

I only give him a tiny bit at a time. For perspective, I have a box of Nutro Max puppy drumsticks that I use at work for when he goes to the washroom outside. I break off a bit of it and treat him with it. I got this box the same day I picked him up. The box is still half full. I got Brody mid-April 2011.

At home I use organic chicken jerkey (from a community farm in British Columbia). He loves this stuff, but I only give him a teeny tiny sliver. Each small strip probably lasts a week or more. He also gets treated for doing training stuff, etc. 

I quickly found he would get loose stools if I over-treated, so, while he gets treated multiple times a day, the amount is very small.

Now, having said that, he IS a big beggar. I've never fed him from my table. I do occasionally give him a bit of cheese or something in his food bowl when I am preparing stuff in the kitchen (he enjoys pasta), but I never feed him from my plate. Since I live on my own, no one is feeding him off their plate in secret! So, I have no clue why he gets soooo excited over my dinner since he never gets any! Yet he goes berserk running around like a mad dog with this huge grin of excitement on his face. (it's hard not to cave in cuz he is so cute with that grin)

His meals are fed in puzzle toys (ball and twister) and he loves that, so really he works for almost all of his food.


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## curly_DC (Nov 27, 2011)

Thanks for the replies. Maybe I should put his kibble in the puzzle toys in the morning.


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## CarolWCamelo (Feb 15, 2012)

All good and interesting posts so far.

Sergio can learn to work for his treats. It's okay if he gets three freebies after his dinner, as long as that is a regular and understood ritual/routine.

You can use signals, which are cues, to let Sergio know what's going on.

You could decide that he's allowed to work for certain treats at certain times of day, or in conjunction with certain daily routines.

it's useful to have a signal that means, "All gone!" (No more - for now!) I hold up my two hands, palms out, fingers spread, and cross my fingers across each other. That means, All Gone, no more for now.

There's a wonderful discussion going on, on the Yahoo DogRead list right now, about operant conditioning - about dogs being the "operators," and "operating on us" to get treats. Much of the discussion is under the title "Cue or Command" or something like that.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DogRead/

The guest author right now is Jolanta Benal, and I really like her work, and her posts on the list.

You can can also find her web site, here:

http://dogtrainer.quickanddirtytips.com/

The essence of having our dogs "operate on us" is that they learn that they can earn treats in certain ways, in certain contexts. We teach them this using, effectively, signals - body language. We can use words, too, but body language is probably the most effective way to signal.

So, we can make certain gestures we make, or things we do, mean to the dog, "Treats are now available; you can work for them now." That's the "On" switch.

Then when you're done (these sessions should typically be very short - just a few minutes), you can use the "off" switch, such as my fingers crossed over each other (both hands at once).

At the same time, for the ON switch, you give your dog your attention, and for the OFF switch, you remove your attention.

Hope that gives you some starting ideas.

One post on DogRead, from yesterday, I think, remarked on how wonderful it is when our dogs have the confidence to operate on us. There's lots of agreement among list-members about that. That makes it easy to teach dogs all kinds of things - tricks, obedience (and obedience is really nothing but tricks), and the various crucial stuff like come when called.

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:26:21 (PDT)


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