Chewing and orneriness when left alone

[drharps]

Thanks for everyone's great advice thus far but I have another issue with Tikka I'm interested in getting help with.

When I'm in the room with her, she's generally well behaved. If I have food on the coffee table, she'll go up and sniff it, but is good about ignoring it when I tell her to. The issue is the second I turn my back. If I leave the room, she goes into investigation mode or 'get what I want' mode. If I turn my back and take a few steps away from the 'prize', she's on it. 

Any suggestions? I don't think it's lack of exercise as we train and exercise her throughout the day (e.g. this morning I trained and played fetch with her for an hour, then we came inside, went in my office, and the second I left the office she was up on my desk pulling off papers). 

Thoughts on fixing this? 

And below is an obligatory "I'm the devil" pic of her from a few months ago

[GentleLake]

She's smart. She knows the difference between when you can see her and when you can't.

Two things: 1) Don't turn your back on her if there's food around. IOW, don't give her a chance to self rewards, because that's exactly what's happening every single time she gets away with it and each time makes it harder to learn not to touch it. 2) Keep practicing when you are in the room and can see her. At this point I wouldn't even allow her to come close to the food and smell it without its resulting in a come to Jesus moment from you. Just noise; nothing physical. And if you can set things up so that someone can leave the room where there's food while someone else is waiting with a view of it but who she can't see, do the same thing -- as soon as she thinks no one's looking, she gets the shit scared out of her and scolded big time.

You don't mention how old she is, but this can take longer for some dogs to become reliable with food within reach when there's no one in sight. Make sure this is well proofed before ever actually leaving her alone with food, even for a second.

ETA: Know your dog or puppy. A young pup or a sensitive dog may take a stern "NO! Bad dog!" as a come to Jesus moment, while a tougher dog or even some puppies will take a lot more bluff and bluster for it to really register. Err on the side of caution when starting out. No need to unduly traumatize the dog. You can always become more gruff the next time if need be.

Edited October 2, 2018 by GentleLake

[Rush Fan]

She looks awfully young to be leaving her alone in a room with stuff she can get into. I kept an x-pen in our sitting room until Mancer was @ 9 months old. When I needed to leave the room I would put her in it. Every once in a while I'd leave her out and peek around the corner to see if she was behaving. Over time she came to learn that it she behaved she didn't have to go in the pen. Also over time I think she reached the point where she lost the urge to get into things in the sitting room because she no longer needed to "explore" anything in that room.

[drharps]

Thanks everyone. That was an old pic of her. She's 14 months old now. 

I'll set her up and hope to teach her through that. 

She used to be great about it, but has started exploring her boundaries again. 

[GentleLake]

5 minutes ago, drharps said:

She used to be great about it, but has started exploring her boundaries again. 

That's entirely to be expected at around this age.

[Rush Fan]

8 minutes ago, GentleLake said:

That's entirely to be expected at around this age.

Yep. You could also consider letting her go with you, if the situation allows for it.