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

Laughed at everyones comment! Recently friend posted on FB her dog stealing off counter using video camera while the friend was in living room.


My old dog thought it would be easier to hide her evidence by putting couch pillow on top of evidence when she ate something she wasn't supposed to and it made her sick.


Too funny. What animals try to do to cover up without getting caught.
 
If there are guest kids around my house with the cookie in their small hands, my sneaky dog would take it out of their hand nice and slowly.

Last time, she was hawking on my friend's son who had a oatmeal cookie. Rest of us were busy and chatting. She crawled toward and took the cookie out VERY slowly out of his hand and munch as the boy gasped "she stole it!"

I wish I took the picture when it happened.:giggle:
 
dogmom said:
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.
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I read a book about amazing pets , I can't remember the title of it but there was one story about a guy that could not find his dog, he looked everywhere and the dog was not to be found. The guy had a storage for his meat and he went to see if his dog was there and the poor dog was dead. He got locked in the storage by mistake for a week and staved to death and the room was filled of fresh cut meat . The dog did not eat any of the meat as he knew he was allowed , he just let himself stave to death out of loyally to his master. The meat storage was just a room and was not an ice box. There was no in the room to tell the dog not to touch the meat, the dog knew it was wrong to eat his master food.
 
I've been trying to get a video of my dog sneaking garbage out her dog door. She will grab something out of the garbage can, sneak across the kitchen on her tip toes (seriously) and make a mad dash out her dog door. It's the FUNNIEST thing you have ever seen.....
 
HOH-ME said:
I've been trying to get a video of my dog sneaking garbage out her dog door. She will grab something out of the garbage can, sneak across the kitchen on her tip toes (seriously) and make a mad dash out her dog door. It's the FUNNIEST thing you have ever seen.....
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Hahahaha! That sounds hilarious. You need to get a video of it!
 
my dogs are pretty good at knowing not to touch food. Occasionally get in the trash once in awhile, but its rare. On the other hand my 22 year old turtle.. I can't leave anything on the floor for a minute.. he steals my pasta, my salad, anything. Bad turtle!
 
my dog knows how to nose his way into the cabinet under my bathroom sink to snack on trash.... I have to remember to keep the bathroom door shut so he can't get in there and make a mess of the trash, or pull out the toilet paper and snack on that. I think once he tried to get into my kitchen cabinets, I heard him making nose in the kitchen while I was sitting in my chair with my laptop. He only started the bathroom trash snacking in January of this year. crazy dog.
 
cdmeggers said:
my dog knows how to nose his way into the cabinet under my bathroom sink to snack on trash.... I have to remember to keep the bathroom door shut so he can't get in there and make a mess of the trash, or pull out the toilet paper and snack on that. I think once he tried to get into my kitchen cabinets, I heard him making nose in the kitchen while I was sitting in my chair with my laptop. He only started the bathroom trash snacking in January of this year. crazy dog.
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Once every few weeks or so, one of our dogs does some litterbox snacking. I would just as soon she did trash snacking instead. :giggle:
 
eh yeah he likes snacking in the litterbox too.... he did enough of that when everyone was living at my mom and stepdad's house a few summers ago (I was still living at home, my sis and her husband were moving back here but didn't have a house yet). My sister had a cat and the catbox was kept downstairs, and my bedroom and computer were downstairs too so Bryant thought the catbox was the greatest thing ever. ew.
 
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