By Sally Bradbury
You can either keep surfaces clear of food or the dog out of the kitchen to prevent the dog from learning to counter surf. Don’t forget that any behaviour that is rewarded is likely to be repeated. For the dog that has already learned to counter surf, teach an alternative behaviour.
Take a chopping board, a knife, and tin of hot dog sausages. Open the tin, tip any brine down the sink, and rinse the sausages. Take out a sausage and spend some time carefully cutting it into small pieces.
Now, just turn sideways and block his view of the chopping board. If he has all four feet on the floor, toss him a bit of sausage. If he is barking, whinging, or whining, then ignore him and continue to chop up sausage. If he stops, chuck him a bit of sausage.
Give him maybe half a dozen rewards for having four feet on the floor and being quiet. Be aware that you are neither asking him to do anything, nor are you asking him to stop doing anything. All you need say to him is a quiet ‘good boy’ when you reward him.
Now, hold off on the next reward and see if he offers anything even better. It could be to move away from the worktop. He might offer a sit or a down, if either of those has a history of reward. Basically, reward the behaviour that you like. The more repetitions you do, the more he is learning what pays off. As a result, when you are preparing food, those are the behaviours that he will offer. You will occasionally still need to reinforce them once learnt.