What to Do When Your Dog Rummages Through the Trash

1 Overview

I. How to correct it

Dogs are usually very interested in trash, from ancestral scavenging habits. Puppies especially love digging and hiding things, sniffing out each smell in the bin, making a mess. To fix this bad habit, correct from 3 angles.

1. Scare the dog with a mousetrap – set the trap by the bin, covered with paper. When triggered, the loud snap startles it. Aim it correctly so it does not hurt the dog; after a few lessons it will behave.

2. If the dog already rummages, move leftovers to another, hidden or hard-to-open bin.

3. Then put something it hates in its favorite bin – orange peel or other foul smells – or use a remote device (so the dog does not know it is you, thinking the bin is the problem). When it approaches, the device sprays a hated gas or makes a sound; over time the dog loses interest.

II. Do not punish the dog

Do not punish the dog. The downsides of punishment:

1. Punishment does not work – the dog will not understand why, and worst case it fears and shakes near you, losing trust.

2. If punishment is mild, some dogs may misbehave on purpose for attention. To it, being hit is painful but happy – it fears being ignored more than being hit, and would rather risk a beating to play with you.

3. A dog beaten for bin-raiding, if it raids unseen, feels like it won the lottery – it will raid for that feeling, like people who keep fighting despite scolding, only fighting harder in secret.