EAT, TRAIN, LOVE – How to use your dog’s meal to enhance their behaviour and improve your bond

Written by Sarah Fulcher, Cert. CBST

Edited by Barbara Medland

Every meal that we feed our dogs is an opportunity for us to improve our dogs’ behaviour, enhance our bond and enrich their lives. Unfortunately, this daily occurrence is often overlooked and is a missed opportunity to improve the lives of our pooches.

As easy as it is for us to just fill our dog’s dishes up on occasion and let them graze on their food, this approach is not successful at teaching your dog the needed skills such as good behaviour and reinforcing your role as the food provider. Studies have shown that there is a strong correlation between behavioural issues with dogs who are free-fed. Allowing your dogs to eat whenever they want is a bad habit to have, especially if you are travelling with your dog or boarding him.

The Problems with being Free-Fed

• Allowing your dog to eat whenever they want is a bad habit to get into if you are traveling with your dog or boarding him, as a grazing dog may be difficult to have on the road when there is only a specified period of time for him to eat.
  

• It does not allow you to take notice if your dog is not feeling well, because their eating habits will change depending on their health. If your dog is trained to eat when their food is infront of them, you know immediately if you are dog is not well, as he will not want to eat.
  

• It makes it really difficult to house train a puppy because you don’t know when they have eaten, and therefore cannot predict when they will need to eliminate as easily.
  

Missed Opportunity?

Our pooches love to work for their meals, by doing something that will reward them with food, or make them search for their food. You have to feed your dog everyday anyways, so why not use this time that is required as a training reward?

I suggest that you feed your dog’s daily portion of food the following three ways:

• 1/3 of food in their bowl. Even though it is best for the majority of your dog’s daily food intake comes through training and enrichment, it is still appropriate to feed them from their bowl. I recommend feeding them this portion of their feed in the evening after a training session.
  

• 1/3 of food given during training. The training sessions conducted can either be formal obedience or tricks training. A portion of their feed can be set aside to work on problem behaviours. For example, you could use the food portion to reward your dog for remaining quiet if he has a barking issue or if you are attempting to train him to stay on the mat while you prepare food to eliminate begging behaviour.
  

• 1/3 of food given in enrichment activities. Enrichment activities can include using a food puzzle toy like a Kong or playing food seeking-hunting games with your dog. These types of activities allow your dog to use their head and work for their food. This technique allows your dog to satisfy their instinctual needs by using their nose, hunt and scavenge. My dogs enjoy when I hide their food throughout the house so they have to search for it. This not only gives them something to do, gets them fed, it tires them out.
  

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http://bnrbc.ca/blog/eat-train-love-how-to-use-your-dogs-meals-to-improve-their-behaviour-and-enhance-your-bond/

EVERY parent should have the responsibility of teaching children how to approach a dog to avoid dog bites. This is something so easy to achieve and something so seldom taught. Parents should also teach their children how to interact with the dogs in their own home. The old saying that education starts at home is so true!!


There are 4 million dog bites each year and 60% of the victims are children. Dr. Leslie Sinclair of the Humane Society of the U.S. says children often don't respect a dog's boundaries—they expect every dog to be friendly, and although most are some aren't. Dr. Tillman Jolly, an emergency room physician says he sees injuries every year because children often do things that they don't realize are annoying to dogs. The Insurance Information Institute cautions that parents should teach their children not to approach an unknown dog. Allow dogs to sniff you before petting them, never disturb a dog that's eating, sleeping or caring for puppies, don't try to run from a dog, and if one is chasing you, stand like a tree or look like a log. Insurance companies paid out $3.5 billion in claims in 2006 for dog bite claims.

Personally I believe that a dog should engage in as many activities as possible for what it was bred for, and this just shows how much doing 'natural' things can impact - even on a blind dog.




(This photo taken Thursday Jan. 17, 2013 shows sled dogs at the Muddy Paw Sled dog Kennel in Jefferson, N.H. The kennel takes in rescues and “second-chance” dogs and is also home to a blind dog that relies on his brother to keep up with the rest of the team. (JIM COLE/AP Photo)


When Gonzo started tripping over his food dish three years ago, no one could explain or stop the Alaskan husky's quickly advancing blindness. But a veterinarian offered some simple advice: "Run this dog."

Gonzo, one of 120 dogs at Muddy Paw Sled Dog Kennel, was happy to comply. With help from his brother, Poncho, he soon resumed his place pulling a sled all over New Hampshire's North Country to the delight of tourists and his caretakers, who quickly realized that if Gonzo didn't treat his blindness like an obstacle, neither would they. Given the dog's obvious eagerness, he was allowed to continue on as usual.

"Even though he's blind, he still knows when hook-ups are happening. He's still very aware," said kennel manager Ben Morehouse. "When you have a dog such as Gonzo, with such a want and a drive and a desire ... you try it, you hook up, you see what happens."

A frenzy of excited barking engulfs the kennel whenever Morehouse and other staffers haul out a sled. The chosen team is outfitted with harnesses and booties; those left behind scramble onto their doghouse roofs and howl. Gonzo and Poncho are lined up side-by-side, usually toward the back of the eight-member team - "brains to brawn" is how Morehouse describes the order.

"A lot of people say everything about dog sledding is efficiency. Gonzo and Poncho are not the most efficient sled dogs out there. They won't set a speed record, they won't pull the most you've ever seen," Morehouse said. "To be honest, they're probably some of the goofiest dogs you can put in harness. But they're just fun."

Some dogs at the kennel, including Gonzo and Poncho, were born there. But it's also home to what kennel owner Neil Beaulieu calls "second-chance" dogs - former professional sled dogs a bit past their prime - as well as dogs rescued from bad situations.

The barking continues as the dogs pull away from the kennel onto a snow-packed trail. Within a few minutes, however, they settle into a nearly silent rhythm, the sled's runners skimming through the woods. While the other dogs look straight ahead, Gonzo often lifts his head up and to the right, using his hearing and sense of smell


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