I have a new foster dog - Pitt/Rhodesian mix about 3-5 yrs old?? I've had her about a week: housetrained, not destructive, walks nicely on a leash, plays well with other dogs, is high energy and very affectionate. The thing is, I've ALWAYS crated her when I wasn't around to supervise and I left her uncrated unsupervised for about 1.5 hours and I came back to my refrigerator being opened with the drawers pulled out and food everywhere this is after I purchased one of those child safety devices after I saw how crafty she could be she broke through it.

When I was home with her supervised she would go over to the refrigerator and open the door and get a correction (leash that drags and collar on) and while she would go over and look at the door a firm, "NO" would make her head go down and she would back away.

She listens when I'm there in the apt, but she isn't the type of dog I would ever trust not to raid the fridge when I'm not home. This doesn't exactly help her chances of being adopted....how do I get her to stay the hell away from the refrigerator?? This bad habit needs to be trained out of her and I don't know what do to? Should I use a e-collar? I've never had this problem before..

Why is the dog out of the crate unsupervised?

Basically the dog is getting a food reward for the behavior. It's kind of like a bear when it raids garbage cans. Basically the reward gained fuels the behavior, and the dog will escalate to achieve it's goal and will become much more destructive on the fridge to get in.

I would bar this dog from the kitchen either using a zones electrical collar or a line connected to you. I would also make sure ALL food stays in the kitchen.

Unsupervised time is out the window and should not happen again, this dog needs to be crated and only out under supervision. Also you can be sure if a dog can open a fridge they will likely know how to open a door, cupboard or window so due vigilance is needed.

 Quote: Gloria Hong

I have a new foster dog..... This doesn't exactly help her chances of being adopted....

Seems like her good qualities, that you mentioned, would be more than enough to get her adopted. The refrigerator issue is easily dealed with by whoever adopts her; just tell them to crate her when she's left unsupervised. Doesn't sound like a big deal to me, for anyone to do this when they get her.

If someone wants perfection, maybe they shouldn't be getting a dog.

Could you maybe put a scat mat in front of the fridge so when she stands on it it produces a high pitch sound to scare her away.

Hello Gloria, I am not a skilled trainer, other than working with my own dogs, so do not feel qualified to advise you on this.

That being said, if you will use the Search function on this website and search for "Avoidance Training" (with the quotes), you will find many many discussions on how to train a dog to avoid certain things.

Just fyi, my daughter had a cat that learned to climb up on the top of the fridge, open the freezer door and then open the refrigerator door from there. He and our dog would then proceed to have a party. The only cure I found (since I couldn't murder my daughter's cat) was to put a strap on the door.

This behavior is self-rewarding. Everytime she does it, it increases the odds that it will happen again.

So for this dog, the correction would have to be stronger than the reward and would have to happen whether or not she thought someone was in the house.

However, if she doesn't do it when someone is in the house with her, then why even bother with all that work? Just keep her crated when you're not home...it's a good thing to do anyway. I doubt that it would harm her chances of being adopted. Just make sure that the potential adopters understand that crating her when they're not home is a requirement for adoption.

My personal experience with quite a few Rhodesians is that they are major food hounds and have a knack for getting food off the counters and such. A crate's the way to go, IMO.