How to Get Your Dog to Stop Following You
- Author: Bryan Miller
- Posted: 2024-07-08
In the modern western world, dogs are far and away the number one pet choice of people. In fact, of all the tens of millions of dog owners, more than half have more than one dog. The phrase "man's best friend" isn't just some marketing slogan. All sorts of people really love their dogs and treat them as part of the family. Though just because you love your dog doesn't mean you dog doesn't have some annoying and bad habits. For instance, a lot of dogs follow their owners. Sure, this can be annoying where you're constantly having to step over your dog every time you try to move, though it can also be more dangerous than that. Some dogs that follow their owners constantly will follow them right out of the door and end up running into the road or running away. This is a habit that your dog definitely needs to be broken from, for their own safety and for your own sanity.
There are all sorts of training books and manuals, obedience school, and a lot of other ways you can go here if you really want your dog to break out of this habit. Though a lot of these things are entirely unnecessary. By and large, your dog isn't following you because he or she has some sort of psychological dependency; rather, they're following you because they think they'll be rewarded if they stay close. This is something you can break them out of with a few simple steps.
Do Not Eat Around Your Dog
To be abundantly clear here, your dog is following you around for a reward, generally speaking. Nine out of ten cases of this happening, the dog thinks if he or she follows you, you're going to grab something to eat, and they're going to get some of it. When studying this, it's found that it's often the case that people whose dogs follow them around actually have sporadic eating habits. They'll often grab candy, open some chips, and they eat at random times and not on some schedule. They also feed the dog from their own plate, and so the dog recognizes these habits. The dog is smarter than you realize; so the dog takes on the habit of following you because it doesn't want to miss the opportunity for food.
This is compounded greatly by pet owners who reward their dogs with snacks, or who just buy their dog packs of different treats and suchlike. The dog is also used to an off-schedule type of feeding, and all of those hunting instincts from its wolf ancestors turn into sort of a guidance system for the domesticated dog, whereby he or she follows you around on the "hunt" for morsels of food. The best way to break your dog out of the habit here is to stop eating around your dog. Let your dog know that your eating time and their eating times are separate, and keep those spaces entirely separate. They will realize pretty quickly that there's not a reward to be gained by following you around.
Leave Your Dog Outside More
Entirely separate, as mentioned in the tip above, means precisely what it says. Try leaving your dog outside while you eat. Their noses are so good that they will be able to smell that you're eating, but this is also going to give them the message that they are not welcome to your food. Make sure that you separate yourself from your dog while you eat, but also separate yourself from your dog while they eat. When you feed your dog, do it in a separate room, and not the room you eat in. Make sure that your dog understands that he or she is not welcome to your food, and that they have their own eating area in the home or on the property.
It's almost always the case that your dog is following you around because they believe you're going to grab a box of treats for them, or that they're going to get a bite of what you're eating. They're following close to you because they do not want to miss out on that. By making your dog understand that there is no reward waiting for them by following you, most dogs are going to stop following you when they realize that they have nothing to look forward to with the act.
