Boosting Your Dog's Interest: Discover 3 Exciting Ways Beyond Food!
In a recent Instagram post, award-winning dog trainer Lisa Burton from Listen Dog Training shared her insights on how to train a dog that is not food motivated. According to Burton, the key is to identify and use motivators that the dog values, such as toys, praise, play, or mental challenges.
Burton recommends choosing treats with strong smells to motivate a dog. However, she emphasizes that the smell of the treat is more important than its taste or texture. To make treats even more valuable, Burton suggests using creative methods to deliver them, such as throwing, scattering, or flicking them. An example of this technique is giving a dog a treat and then playing a quick game, repeating this, and eventually giving the game or toy as a surprise result of being fed a treat.
To train a dog that is not food motivated, Burton advises against relying solely on treats. Instead, she suggests fostering engagement through interaction and problem-solving. This involves teaching your dog to focus on you and associate you with rewards beyond food, promoting focus and willingness to learn.
Burton also recommends incorporating operant conditioning and problem-solving into your training sessions. Let your dog explore and offer behaviors, rewarding those you want. This encourages cognitive engagement, which has been shown to motivate dogs effectively, especially those with low food drive.
To further increase food motivation, Burton advises against free-feeding and suggests switching to regular meal times. Setting strict feeding schedules can help make your dog more willing to work for meals.
Burton also warns against using a boring dog bowl and instead recommends feeding by hand or using engagement and puzzle feeders. The Outward Hound Nina Ottosson Dog Worker Green Interactive Treat Puzzle Dog Toy is a recommended boredom-busting toy that gives a dog's brain a good workout while dishing up treats.
It's important to note that when a dog is overstimulated, overexcited, or anxious, this can affect his ability to eat. Dogs are contrafreeloading, meaning they enjoy eating more when there is more work involved in obtaining their meal. Therefore, it's crucial to maintain a positive, rewarding training environment that is tailored to your dog's drives.
In summary, train a non-food-motivated dog by leveraging their preferred motivators (toys, play, praise), fostering engagement through interaction and problem-solving, and controlling feeding schedules to increase interest if food is to be used. Avoid force or harsh corrections, focusing on making training a positive, rewarding experience tailored to your dog's drives.
- Award-winning dog trainer Lisa Burton highlights the importance of identifying and using motivators that a dog values, such as toys, praise, play, or mental challenges, for training a dog not motivated by food.
- Burton recommends using strong-smelling treats to motivate a dog, but emphasizes that the smell is more significant than the treat's taste or texture.
- To maximize the value of treats, Burton suggests creative delivery methods like throwing, scattering, or flicking them, and coupling them with quick games.
- To train a dog not motivated by food, Burton advises against relying solely on treats and instead fostering engagement through interaction and problem-solving, teaching the dog to focus on the trainer and associate rewards with something beyond food.
- Burton also recommends incorporating operant conditioning and problem-solving into training sessions, allowing the dog to explore and offer behaviors, and rewarding the desired ones.
- To increase food motivation, Burton suggests switching from free-feeding to regular meal times, using engagement and puzzle feeders like the Outward Hound Nina Ottosson Dog Worker Green Interactive Treat Puzzle Dog Toy, and maintaining a positive, rewarding training environment that is tailored to the dog's drives.
