GOOD techniques to stop a dog thief?

I would not normally say this, but use the Cesar Milan technique of "claiming space." You don't need to make contact with the dog, you just have to stand firm and proud and use your physical presence and force to force the dog out of a room.

Picture yourself standing in front of a car and the car is demanding you leave the property. They car doesnt want to run you over, so it proceeds at 3km per hour and slowly pushes you off of the property. When you try to walk around the car, the car turns to keep you in front of you. The whole time, you are forced to back away, staring at those glaring headlights.

Same thing except the car is the owner, the trespasser is the dog and the headlights are the owners stern eyes.

Your physical actions do all the work, but you can associate a word with this action, such as a stern "back." After doing this a handful of times, you will be able to get your dog to back away using just the word back. This is called classical conditioning.

Once the dog gets 10 feet away or so, say in another room, like the kitchen or hallway or even just 10 feet from the table. You then stand there and wait until the dog calms down and sits. Then you walk back. If the dog comes back, you cajole him back to the exact same spot. That will be his spot when there is food around.

I dont like the crate idea, because it evades the point. The point is to teach respect and boundaries. This is a prime exercise to learn how to command this. In the future you can generalize the command "back" to other situations, such as a child walking around outside eating a cookie, or to a spilled box of food that you want to collect up again without the dog grabbing anything. Perhaps you drop a bunch of chocolates on the floor one day and your dog rushes in, its much safer and easier to just say "back."

Wow...this family is headed for trouble.

Food is all about pack order to a dog. The alpha dog gets to have whatever food it wants. That combined with being allowed to sleep with humans has taught this dog that she is not equal to, but HIGHER in the pack than the children, so she can steal their food right off their plates. God help those kids if they ever cross her!

These people need to start teaching this dog that they are alpha, they eat first, they determine what food she gets and how much and when. They need to stop leaving food unattended and never feed her until all of them have finished eating. Whoever feeds the dog (as long as it's an adult) should put the food dish down for her and then pick it up again before she's finished eating. After a moment or two they can put it back down. This is to reinforce to the dog that the humans provide the food and determine when and how much she can have...which will help teach her where her place is in the pack..

*Edit* If they are free feeding now (leaving food out all day) they should stop and just feed her twice a day. If they don't teach the dog that they are in control of the food, the dog will continue to think she is entitled to take whatever she wants. You are right when you say that telling her "no" after the fact isn't going to be too useful. If they want to correct the problem they are going to have to make some changes in their routines that allowed the problem to develop to begin with...at least until she understands what she is allowed to do and isn't.. If they don't want her to steal food, they are going to have to take total control of all the food for awhile.

I did this coaching for years with my Rottweiler's approximately 17 years in the past. I even have long gone faraway from it by way of the years. besides the indisputable fact that, i actually enjoyed it and that i pass decrease back to it. For some reason this is barely an fantastically good feeling once you practice this kind and exciting too. I even have continually struggled (in my suggestions) with the a hundred% valuable enforcement. And it grow to be no longer until only now I found out why! i don't experience valuable and guard with it and that i've got faith a correction is only that, a correction! i've got faith that with the a hundred% valuable reinforcement my canines are slackers. (lol) this is defiantly no longer an analogous or perhaps close. yet i think of i grow to be so worried approximately my Pit Bulls I might desire to have had extra self belief in myself that I knew extra effective. Oh nicely stay and study, i'm only happy it grow to be only at my rate in case you comprehend what I propose. You pass Quattro!

Keep her in a crate.

Sounds like an awesome idea.

And when she's out, make sure there's no food around.

Use a spray bottle

yell at them when they beg

bite there ear(shows dominance)

use bark busters training service

and oddly enough bark at them