My dog eats the cat food we have all the time like he,s eating
his food. He also gets on top of the counter to get to cats food. Getting annoying. Any ideas on how to stop that?
Cat food is very appealing to most dogs, so asking them to ignore it all the time when it's in an area that's accessible to them is a very hard thing for dogs to do. Your best option will be to put the cat food somewhere he isn't able to get to. I don't know how big your dog is, but putting the cat food in the back of a cat-sized kennel worked well to keep my larger dog away from it. A smaller dog likely won't be deterred by this. You could put the food in a room behind a baby gate (out of sight of your dog - you don't want to motivate him to find a way through or over the gate by torturing him with the sight of something he wants.
To work on the counter surfing problem, I recommend checking out this training video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYsdo... - I assume you don't want him up on the counters at all, so even if you solve the problem with the cat food, it would be a good idea to train him that you don't want him to ever cruise the counter tops looking for food. This method can also be used to deter your dog from stealing the cat food regardless of where you end up placing the dish. And since you seem to have a number of questions regarding how to train your dog, I recommend subscribing to his channel. Whenever I have a training question, his videos are one of the first places I look for advice.
I see this A LOT. Have had the same issue myself. Dogs are extremely food driven by nature. I believe you CAN train them to stay out of the cat food but it takes the kind of consistency the vast majority of people just aren't down for. It's frustrating and after all your efforts, it still might not work, depending on the dog.
I think it's easier and fool proof to just put the food on the counter or desk where the issue becomes a non-issue. Many of my clients cats have their food off of the floor and higher up away from dogs.