Lead Through Feeding Your Dog

April 29

Being the leader of your dog pack is critical for you and your dog. This happens via structured obedience training lessons, real life dog training and by normal everyday life.

One {subtle|discerning} method that can be used to gain credibility with your dog occurs everyday at feeding time. With many families, feeding dogs is just something that has to be done.

Why not take that few minutes and improve the relationship you have with your dog? Here is how I feed my dogs and what I recommend to my dog training clients Winston-Salem.

Always run your hands through the dog food. In essence, you are putting your scent all over his food.

What does this accomplish?

In the dog pack, who eats first? The leader of the pack or alpha dog. By {putting|placing} our scent on the food, we are basically passing the food down after we are done with it.

Don’t just put the food down for him to eat. Hold it and make him perform an obedience command for it first. Many dogs are stimulated to eat and rush|devour their food when placed in front of them. It becomes a chaotic process. I slow down the event. By doing this, I am showing my dog I have authority over him.

Did you know you are actually giving your dog mental stimulation in this process by making him calm down and be patient? Call it a mental exercise which is just as important as physical exercise.

I also make sure I praise him for good behavior and I never give in without getting the response the leader deserves. If you give in, you are just showing your dog you are not capable of leading his pack.

There is more to feeding and behavior, but this is all we will discuss right now! If you have a food aggressive dog defer to a dog training professional before you try this; but, it should be a relatively safe event as long as you are not trying to take food away from him while eating.

Note: Jim Hodges is a certified master dog trainer that works with dogs and their owners in Winston-Salem, NC. . The information he shares is from his many years of training and observing/studying dog behavior. These are his thoughts and opinions and should never be done with a dog that has shown any aggressive tendencies.