# Barking when cooking/eating



## kirsty04green (May 2, 2021)

Chester is my 7 month old cockapoo. We only got him at 5 months. Long story but friends of a friend got him but it didn’t work out for them.

When we first got Chester, he was very interested in our food when we were eating and would jump up at the table etc but we worked hard to get into a routine where he got a treat just before we eat and that settled him. We were getting to the point where he really didn’t bother when we were cooking or eating.

Chester has suddenly, pretty much out of nowhere, started barking when we prepare and eat food. It’s not aggressive, he wags his tail, but it is very loud. We’ve tried ignoring it but it continues and shutting him out the room which does eventually calm him. Does anyone have any tips on how to deal with this?

Chester never gets food off our plate when we are eating, in fact we are really strict about what he eats and he only gets little bits of meat when training or when we are out a walk so it’s not like we have encouraged anything (that I know!)


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## 2ndhandgal (Aug 29, 2011)

The easiest thing to do in most situations is to teach the dog what you do want them to do, you can then reward that and then gradually reduce the reward. The easiest thing for this sort of situation is to teach a settle on mat type exercise so dog will go and calmly lay down and watch you


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## kirsty04green (May 2, 2021)

2ndhandgal said:


> The easiest thing to do in most situations is to teach the dog what you do want them to do, you can then reward that and then gradually reduce the reward. The easiest thing for this sort of situation is to teach a settle on mat type exercise so dog will go and calmly lay down and watch you


Thank you, that’s really helpful, settling on a mat/bed is something generally he’s not great at as he has never really taken to any of the beds we’ve bought him but we are trying something new so will incorporate it at meal time. Thanks!


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