Training As A Meal

[Arya]

I've gotta say I did try this, dividing my dog's meal up into portions and feeding her them from various pockets during a training session each morning. It didn't particularly increase her drive to work and made no diff to rest of our training because she already has huge drive to work for a hose but I wanted to see if I could reinforce this. I found other ways that worked better for my dog. BUT, I think you're totally on the right track. You don't want a fat puppy and every time you do this, you are reinforcing who is leader and where the food is coming from and associating the training with something great... food Anyone who thinks this is wrong, imho needs their head read. Look at K9's triangle of temptation. Isn't this just a variant in some ways? Go for it. If it's helping you then GOOD ON YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Incidentally, I strike a bit of a prob with tracking as I have taught tracking with food in footstep and go thru a lot of food every second morning. Had to get creative with feeding habits to make sure I didn't get a fattie either LOL.

[Kavik]

I may try this with Diesel to try to get more enthusiasm out of him, although having varied the amount of food he gets I haven't noticed him working better if he hasn't been fed.

I have done the spitting food thing so normally use cheese as treats as they are the only treat I could handle putting in my mouth! Not a balanced meal so would not use this if I decide to use his meals, would probably use dry food.

[Leema]

Thanks for all your inputs. And I'm glad some of you are giving it a go and seeing what you get. :p

With small dogs... A chicken neck is a meal! So it gets a bit tricky feeding raw. But I've made a breakthrough! I can do diced beef in the kitchen with the tap nearby to immediately wash my hands after training.

I was a bit taken away with the other forum and the furious declaration of me as 'cruel'... Apparently, they know this breed better than me and they know it is harmful. How or why they wouldn't say. :D What a crock.