Garbage-Raiding Dogs: One Simple Solution to the
Problem
Dina Giolitto
Got a mischievous mutt on your hands? Then you may know this
scenario. You walk in the door and your pal greets you with
elated tail wagging, wiggling and sloppy doggy kisses. Then
suddenly, he's overcome with a guilty look and it's off to cower
behind the couch. Uh-oh. You know what this means. Sure enough, a
telltale trail of eggshells, coffee grinds, grease stains and
tattered wrappers leads you to the scene of the crime: the
kitchen. Your dog's done it again, raided the garbage.
You've tried whacking him, you've tried gating him, you've put
him in dog house solitary for a few hours as punishment. Still,
no matter how much you holler and scold, your dog's still up to
his no-good hijinks with that darned kitchen trash pail every
time you leave the house. What's a frustrated dog owner to do?
First of all, let's think about who we're dealing with here. It's
a DOG. He might be your lovable pal, and at times he seems
smarter than your husband, but the truth is, here's an animal
that's at least two steps down on the food chain. Just
remembering that fact alone may help you realize that your dog
does not have advanced reasoning capacity.
Okay: now that we have the pooch perspective on higher learning,
we can reason out the situation in a way that your dog will never
be able.
If your dog is home alone, bored out of his doggy mind, he's
eventually going to find his way into the kitchen. Sniffing
around for a dropped crumb under the table, maybe doing a little
counter-surfing on the sly. Then, he follows his nose to the
fermenting dog buffet that you call garbage... and, half crazed
from having to beg for his every meal, he immediately begins
harfing down every delicious morsel. He can't help himself!
When you come home hours later and push your dog's nose into the
mess while spanking his fanny, his limited brain is not ever
going to master the long-term cause-and-effect of why
garbage-raiding is bad and leads to a beating. In this immediate
situation: he knows three variables: him, you, and the garbage.
>From that simple vantage point, your pushing his nose into the
garbage equals a scolding.
However, when you're NOT there, that's only TWO variables: him,
and the garbage. To him, that means "Let's chow down!" Later,
when you come home, he's well-forgotten the garbage-raiding spree
and only knows that 1. he's happy to see you, 2. there's garbage
around, and 3. you're yelling at him. But he doesn't ask "Why?"
because he has no ability to reason.
How are beatings and scoldings going to keep him from going on
his trash rampages? They're not!
You can use simple Pavlov-style behavior conditioning to make
your dog behave through positive reinforcement. The trick to this
is repetition of a single stimuli: Command, execute, reward. All
of this is immediate. It's also the reason dogs bark every time
they hear a doorbell on the TV. But we'll never be able to
explain to the dog that the doorbell on the TV is not the real
doorbell. And you'll never convince him that if he stays away
from the garbage he won't get a walloping. If you can, then I
suggest you have him join MENSA, because that is one genius dog!
So, the real solution to the garbage raiding predicament is this:
you're going to have to move the garbage out of your dog's reach.
It's a simple fix for an annoying problem, and probably the only
reason why you haven't done it already is because you don't want
to change your stuff around for a dog. Well, you're not doing it
for the dog! You're doing it for your own peace of mind.
Now, where can you move the garbage to? You can pick it up and
place it on top of the washing machine, if that's behind a nearby
door you can close. You can rearrange the cleaning products under
your kitchen sink and fit it under there, and then buy or fashion
a lock for the cabinet door. You can shut it in the garage on
your way out. You can hoist it up on a countertop that your dog
can't jump up on. You can stow it away in the bathroom.
There now, was that so hard? You didn't have to spend tons of
money on dog obedience classes. You didn't have to go through the
heartbreak of laying into your little pup when he's giving you
those big, sad eyes. And best of all, you didn't have to come
home and Febreeze the living heck out of your living room rug.
Move the garbage. For the love of dog!
Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.
Dina Giolitto is a copywriting consultant and ghostwriter with 10
years of experience writing corporate print materials and web
content. Trust her with your next e-book article series or web
project, and make a lasting impression on your audience of hungry
prospects. Visit http://www.wordfeeder.com
for more information.
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