It's hard to do without help, but heres a hint keep your least valueable (of the two valueables) item in the visible active slot. with awareness people might decide its worth knocking whatever out of your hand to have their buddy grab it. (targeted shot thief teams suck..)
actually i'd prefer if the puish command would move the guy 2 hexes instead of one, because of the push anim->walk anim takes some time, and of course the dedicated thief will just get back to the previous position before you have time to take a step.
This would definitely be a good solution to stopping blocking thieves, although it might look a little weird to push someone that far.