Does your Yorkie eat off the floor?
 

Now I'm not trying to open the door to down anyone who answers yes.

We are a unique community where for the most part we all do some things that get us picked on or made fun of by some of or non-Yorkie or non-dog loving friends & family: dog strollers, cloths, sun glasses carriers etc.

A friend was over she dropped some carrot bits on the floor and noticed my dogs patiently looking at it and not waggin their nubbins like crazy.

She went over and tried to provoke them to get it off the floor like magic (I wish they always did this but they don't so don't get impressed)
they all turned and looked at me like really!>can we.

I gave a stern NO NO.

She inquired why I wouldn't let them eat carrot she sees me give it to them all the time.

I said my dogs are trained not to eat off the floor or take anything from anyone but our immediate family (like they refuse treats at stores or at the vets until I take it and give it to them).

She noted having a living vacuum was one of the benefits of having dog what was my issue.

I said well with three dogs and three kids I can't hover all the time and make sure that when I'm making dinner chopping an onion I won't drop a dice of it and I can't risk one of my furkids eating it and gettting sick.
An onion dice is all it takes to possibly kill a dog the size of mine, or give hem stomach upset in the least.

Well sorry for making this long but my friend thinks I'm neurotic and that I over train my dogs into push button dogs overly concerned about silly precautions.
I think not, I think I'm prepared and trained them with certain ideals in mind for their and our safety.
So I was wondering if I'm alone here>?

Add me to the neurotic club. It's gone as far as my dad handing Kaji an innocent and clean piece of bread. But, I didn't know what it was. All I saw was Kaji happily accepting something from my dad and then I yelled "drop it" from across the room. I'm so glad Kaji listens so well. He was wide eyed and hurt he didn't get the "treat" and so was my dad.

My parents have given Kaji no no foods before (they didn't know) and I had a sick dog for the remainder of the day. Now, if anyone gives him anything, they ask for approval first.

Mine will eat off the floor if its people food. The hard dog food that gets out of their food bowl though they wont touch

I'm impressed with both of you. I taught Joey early drop it, but we didn't work on it enough. Now "drop it" just means "swallow it as fast as you can." concretegurl, you are so right to do this, a large size dog it wouldn't matter so much, but as you say, just a tiny bit of a forbidden substance can cause problems with a Yorkie.

I think it's a great thing to teach your dogs not to eat anything without "permission"
I am still working on this with Jaxon. He's really good at dropping whatever he picks up as long as I give him the command, but if he can sneak a floor snack behind my back he will, lol!
He also has this habit of taking a mouthful of food out of his dish and dropping it on the floor to eat it...what's that about??? :confused:

This as well for mine, I wish I could teach them not to eat off the floor;)

where in the USA do you live, oh I how I wish you lived near me and could give me the help I need. Lola grabs anything that drops on the floor regardless if it is a food, it could be anything a pin, a button, a dryer sheet, a christmas tree ornament etc. Yesterday I kept finding her with tiny tiny red foam buds, something that could have been from a fake floral decoration, I have no idea where she was getting it from. This worries me since I am a klutz and drop things often. I am constantly chasing after her saying no drop it, but she thinks this is a game, so I distract her by throwing a toy, but a toy is not alway handy. So please tell me how you trained them on this issue. Actually now that I remember my first yorkie could be made to leave things, we could put a treat in front of him and make him leave it, but I also trained him to sit, stay, etc fairly easily. Lola thinks everything I do is a game, I use my hand to say down, and she mimics me and puts her paws out then goes down, then comes up and goes down again, if I say down three of four times she keeps doing it till finally I almost have to scream DOWN, it is funny but frustrating at the same time.

Kaji will probably eat stuff off the floor when I'm not there. I've been told he's a different dog when his controlling mother isn't there. :p

Whew!
Glad this wasn' like my "am I weird for my dog showing on the tub floor while I shower' thread!

Dvlish,
I totally know what you mean I'm like the treat police here," what do you have , what are you trying to give the dog, no show it to me first, did you check the list on the refrigerator?"
Chachi,
Aren't they clever like that? Good thing they are so stinking cute!;)
Cady,
I read a lot of Yorkie take their food out their bowls and do that.To be totally honest and fair, I shoudl review the DVR and see what they really do when I'm not looking...I imagine on more than one occasion they nibbled off the floor when I was not in the room.:rolleyes:

Nancy,
LOL drop it means swallow as fast as you can!:D

True story same friend (she has a pointer she took from a coworker who has chickens-long story short co-workers husband was going to shoot the dog because it killed half their chicken and he loves his little chickens they make eggs and keep bugs out of his garden. The pointer is definitely a RAW eater)

anywhozit pointer was in the yard with her fam...snatched a mole right out the ground it was wriggling and biting the dog's muzzle, they all yelled,"No! Drop it" (maybe it was a vole actually) the dog in one swift chomp and swallow-no more mole!!!!

They all said bad dog but were semi in shock over the incident and joke about what drop it means to her now!


Dazz,
To do the training I only give treats from my hand.
I set them up a few times (Elvis was the hardest actually he was older when I got him and he's a food sneaker) I would put treats on the floor and people foods, then I made them sit and see it look at it and had a treat in my hand.
If they moved toward the treat on the floor big bad mom voice stern No. of they sat and waited soft baby talk mom chatter and a treat from me-it took a lot of time.

DBlain,
California. I know it;s a pain but I have kids so I sweep like 1-2 times a day here, plus during the above training I had to actually leash Princess to me-that girl has one motivation in life-to fill her stomach!

I think lots of dogs drop their food out of their bowl to eat it, Lola's food is in the kitchen and often she takes hers piece by piece to the dinning room to eat it. I kept my first dog's dish in the hall outside of my bedroom and he would wait unit I got into bed and then grab some kibble, jump on the bed eat it and go back and do it again and again, finally I started taking the dish up before we went to bed. The worst was my dog that would not drink from his bowl, he was afraid of it, so he had to splash the water out of the bowl and lick it up from the floor. Drove me nuts, I tried every type of bowl and placemat known to man to cure him of this.

Harley has a "leave it cue" but unless I tell him to leave it he'll gobble anything off the floor. He really likes to eat lint, which annoys me.

He does however stick to if he drops kibble out of his dish, he usually wont eat that until his bowl is empty, I haven't figured out if he's saving the best for last, or that piece of kibble isn't good enough... lol

Well Yoshi will smell of something and then eat it, but Prissy will just grab it and run..I have taught Yoshi to leave it if he was around something that I thought would be bad but never thought of using that for food on the floor..

You sure have some well trained dogs...

We are trying to teach Katie Scarlett to not eat off of the floor as well. I am always worried that she is going to find something on the floor and pick up that she shouldn't. I am very OCD about my house and vacuum a lot. But I still worry. It's a work in progress for us. I keep a sharp eye out, but like many, you can't watch them every single second of every day.

I am impressed! Really I am. My post is going to make me look like a bad parent. Moka is very cautious and waits for permission, but Mylee on the otherhand, it's whoever is fastest. If I know I dropped something and tell her NO, she'll stop. But I catch her eating off the floor, out of the dishwasher, she'll get in the trash, heck, just today the wind blew open the door to our barbeque grill and we caught her in there looking for grease droppings. She'll even eat off the table if she can get up there. She's just very determined. She also eats bugs, leaves, branches, mulch, you name it she'll try to eat it. I should add because of her we are extra cautious to keep the trash door closed, and rinse our dishes before we put them in the washer.

Don't feel bad. I'm just being curious.

I'm a little more on top of the floor's cleanliness since I have a crawling baby right now too.

Keeping him from eating stuff on the floor is a full time job right now!

Just sayin' Princess has this disorder the vet calls it.

She tried to eat random objects mostly hard plastic.

And in the back yard (did a lot of plant removal) it's a free for all if an apple falls from the tree they think it's a treat waiting in the grass for them to devour!

Of course hopping bugs (especially grass hopper) are treats that are fun to chase and play with prior to eating!

Callie doesn't eat a lot off the floor there are a few things that she likes that she will eat if dropped but she has never been really fond of all the bad for dog foods but I have had to tell her no before and she walks away from it. When guest are over I always watch her and other people VERY close because I do worry about them dropping something she shouldn't have and that she might go for it. I found Callie eats her dog food better off of a small paper plate well she has decided she likes to grab the plate and dump the food on the floor and then eat it. Callie will also not take "candy" from "strangers". He go to the pet expo and Sammy takes treats from the people but Callie will not take it. She only take treats from me, my dad, and my mom. I never taught her that but its kind of nice she is like that.

ZoE will look at me when anything drops on the floor to see what she should do. If I tell her it's ok to eat it, she will. If it's not ok to eat I say, "yucky! yucky!" and she backs away. This works for anything I drop that I don't want her near. I've knocked glasses off the counter and yelled, "yucky! yucky!" and she backs away from the shards of glass too. I didn't mean to train it to mean back off everything, but she's taken it to mean that & it works for us.

Unfortunately, Jackson is definitely a snack vacuum. He sees food on the floor and it's fair game him. We've been working on it though and he does have a pretty good leave it, but once it's already IN his mouth, all bets are off if it's something yummy.

Oh, but he typically does not take treats from strangers, unless it's something really good.

Scribble doesn't eat anything off the floor either. The only time, he did was when we first brought him home, and he was a little hesitant to eat, I made a little trail of kibbles from where I was sitting to his bowl.

If I drop something I immediately say 'wait or ockey' and she'll stay put (usually). If it's tissue or something of the hygiene family she could care less what I say. If I say drop it she gulps it. She pooped a q-tip tip just yesterday.:rolleyes:

One thing that makes me weird, I'm sure, is I don't like to throw food on the floor to her 'like a dog'.:p I just don't feel right about it. I feel like a loon just typing that, lol. She has several extra plates & bowls for special things or at the very least I use the placemat her dishes are on.

Youre not a loon. I don't throw stuff at Kaji either. He has bowls for his food or treats, or I can take it from my hand. :)

Definitely not a loon.

For several many reasons I make my dogs take things from my hand or from the kids' hands directly, they pay more attention they learn to take things nicely, they focus on who is feeding them etc.

In the same breath Elvis has been know to lick stuff-even the floor under the breakfast table-he's super OCD about licking himself clean and cleaning stuff with his tongue, he's a little loon himself.

Our Dexter does the same. I can tell when he gets something because he takes off running. The last thing he had was a plastic tie used on the end of a bread loaf. Of course we run after him and drop it does not work, I have to reach in and get whatever he has.

We would love to stop this if we only could.

To do the training I only give treats from my hand.
I set them up a few times (Elvis was the hardest actually he was older when I got him and he's a food sneaker) I would put treats on the floor and people foods, then I made them sit and see it look at it and had a treat in my hand.
If they moved toward the treat on the floor big bad mom voice stern No. of they sat and waited soft baby talk mom chatter and a treat from me-it took a lot of time.

Once they understand what you mean it's just a matter of repeat and treat, repeat and treat-practice btw treat is reward...make sure you can snatch the treat or food off floor before they can get it.

Again as with anything time is the big key-I'm retraining mine to sit and wait at the door to come in and go out-it is so stinking hard right now with three of them, baby and our crazy schedule etc. Time patients practice practice practice.

If you stick with anything eventually it will click for them and it's a matter of just encouraging it and reminding them.:thumbup:

Oh at one point Princess was leashed to me for this training she would just bulldoze to get the food on the floor-it;s especially hard right now to remind them no eating off floor since baby is getting Gerber graduate puff-they are like catnip to cats only for babies and dogs!

Oh and don't let anyone interrupt your training-having interference is the most unproductive. For some things I often have to train my dogs one at a time and then slowly trying bringing the two who get it them most together before adding the third...I still cannot walk all three of mine together at a time, they all just go naughty not listening wild dogs on me.:rolleyes:

Mine do eat of the floor but I'm a nut case when I'm cooking and if anything drops, I pick it up immediately. Mine do know "drop it", "leave it" and my fav, "ah, ah". They listen to any one of those both in the house as well as outside. We have a lot of critters in my neighborhood who leave deposits all over the yard and road so it's something that they definitely needed to learn and heed.

I teach my dogs not to eat anything regardless of where it is located...including their food bowl...until they are told it is "all yours"...but, since I got the Yorkies last summer at 14-17 months old...I start training much younger, normally, we are not there yet and have a lot of training to do still. :rolleyes::p

I started that training because I had young children and I didn't want food competition or the dog snatching food out of a toddler's hands because it was at tongue level. I like "all yours" because then anyone can give anything to the dog, as long as the appropriate command is given...and I don't tell strangers, but rather give the command myself in a sentence that sounds like 'conversation' but ends in the command.

Oh my boys LOVE LOVE big black crickets! they chase and play with them and then eventually Dexter just eats them! Soooo gross!!!!! LOL I have hawk eyes on my boys and I never give little kids at my house food that could hurt my babies, I don't serve raisins or things with onions, plus we don't give my boys much people food so most prepared foods like pasta salad or potato salad they won't even eat because its weird to them. I hardly ever drop chopped foods on the floor because of the dogs. I am just super careful. I mean if it's carrots Im less careful, if it's onions I'm SUPER careful. I have taught them to drop it also... mostly they make me take it from them, but at least they don't practice the whole 'swallow it as quickly as possible' method! haha

:yelrotflm

We (and by that I mean DH :p) had a Rott/Pit who was the biggest baby even though he looked 'vicious' to people who didn't know him because of his brindle coloring. Any food that was near enough to be 'snacked' was 'snacked' and any human voice heard after the 'snacking' happened merely increased the suction velocity of the swallowing! We are convinced the dog passed without ever knowing what most of his 'snacked treats' tasted like! :D