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The Value of Food in Creating Training Success

Helping your Dog Make Good Choices – on it’s own!

The goal of our emotional-based training program is to help dogs learn to make good behavior choices on their own, without the use of nagging commands and management techniques. This high level of accountability by your dog is created when we shift the dog’s desire to be in alignment with their owner.

For instance, an owner may be frustrated that a dog jumps on their guests upon entering their home. The dog’s choice is to jump and enjoy this moment of excitement with the new stimulation that has entered their world. The owner on the other hand, wants the dog to be calmer and keep their feet on the floor. Or, a dog sees another dog on a walk and begins pulling on the leash and barking. The dog is overwhelmed with emotion in this moment and expresses this through these frustrating and embarrassing behaviors. The dog’s desires are out of alignment with its owner’s!

So how does food align behaviors?

Food helps us assess the dog’s emotional state of mind. This is critical to understand in the learning process. If the dog’s emotional state is too high, the opportunity for learning is drastically minimized. Just like humans, if we are stressed and overwhelmed, we don’t process information effectively and often make sub-optimal choices. If a dog isn’t taking food, this is a good indication they are too stressed for their body to desire food. An owner’s expectation for good behavior should be low.

Food has the ability to stabilize emotions. Think of your favorite comfort food. When you are stressed and feeling emotionally out of balance, maybe you reach for a bowl of ice cream, your favorite bubbly soda or beverage, a warm bowl of pasta, etc. Consuming these foods helps balance our internal systems and allows our brain to start processing information more rationally. This exact stabilization process occurs with dogs. If a dog is imbalanced, they will not be able to think clearly, so using food to help get them into a better mental state is critical to changing behavior.

Food has positive associations for dogs, especially high-value food. Connecting behaviors to the value of receiving food provides motivation for the dog to repeat behaviors we desire. The key to dogs having accountability for their choices comes through them desiring to do the behaviors the owner desires of them. Food is one option to create that motivation.

During the rewarding process, food will add less excitement to the training environment compared to affection or playing with your dog, which are other forms of rewards. If a dog is already struggling to remain emotionally balanced in order to make positive choices, rewards need to be memorable (the taste of food, especially high-value food is very memorable) and not further stimulate the dog to a point where they fail and fall back into doing the negative behavior.

Take aways to using food successfully in your training efforts:

Reward the dog with food for any behaviors you want the dog to repeat. Be consistent until the dog is naturally choosing the behaviors you desire. This is true alignment.

Determine what environments your dog will reliably have an appetite for food and which situations are too stimulating. Focus your training in environments where your dog is able to freely eat.

Timing is important to changing behavior. You need to be prepared with your food pouch on you at all times so you can mark (saying YES to your dog) the behaviors you want your dog to repeat and immediately providing when with a reward to reinforce their good choice.

If you are looking to change behaviors and elevate the joy you find spending time with your dog, let Full House Dog Training guide you with our emotional-based training program.