All dog behavior is related to one or more of the five Canine Commodities; food, water, space, toys, or attention. Just as it is with people, food is first. It’s far from just an emotional want, beyond breath and water, it is needed by dog and man alike to live. Dogs never stop searching it out with their nose. It’s kind of their thing.
The sad reality is that dogs do not live as long as humans. This means that inside the natural pack (without humans) pack status can change quickly due to illness, disease, injury, or death. This means that dogs are always monitoring the behavior of the pack to make sure that those in charge are fit to be in charge. If they are not, challenges will occur. This is primal and cannot be trained out of canines. Instead, we need to understand it and use it at the core of how we interact with our dogs.
Dogs, unlike people, don’t care about titles. Saying you are the pack leader means nothing. You have to be a pack leader. You cannot bluff it. What you say means nothing. What you do means everything. The #1 thing that you have the time and opportunity to control every day is the feeding ritual.
My best practices for feeding that I share with clients is this, you decide when, where, how much, and how long they have to eat. Every morning, before your dog can consider your position, you show it during the feeding ritual.
When– whether you are feeding once or twice a day it should be done within the same 30 minute time frame. In our house, with our five dogs, we feed twice a day, 7:30 AM & 5:30 PM. That means that unless something crazy is going on they eat between 7-8 AM and 5-6 PM. Since my Olde English Bulldogge Odin is my service dog, I am the only one that feeds him. He has been my SD for almost five years. When I am not there to feed him, someone else puts the food in his box while he is outside so he comes in to find it already there. He assumes that I put it there.
Where– all of our dogs are fed in the same place all the time. It is not unlike you needing to sit in your seat at the dinner table to be fed.
How much– for the sake of nutrition and weight control be sure to measure their food. They should never be allowed to eat as much as they want. For instance Odin is 75 lbs and gets 2 cups twice a day.
How long they have to eat– it is very common for me to show up at a clients house and see that their food is sitting in their dog’s bowl. This just goes against the canine mind. In the natural pack, the dog would never walk away from food and have it still be there when he returns. When they walk away, they are giving it to the next dog in line. If you give it to your dog, they eat or don’t, and walk away and it is there when they return, it sends a message to them that they control the availability or scarcity of food. They should see you as the only food source and you controlling when, where, how much, and how long controls the scarcity. By you controlling that scarcity, the dog will always focus on you. This one habit can be a break through for you and your dog. Our dogs get 15 minutes to eat. Anything that is not eaten is picked up and added to the next feeding to equal a full serving. Basically do not free feed.
Many of you are saying that your dog eats it all right away. That is a good thing. It means you are not overfeeding them. For the dog that woofs down their food, you can get one of the slow feeder bowls or more economically put a nice big round rock in the middle of the bowl.
Only feed when calm– if you have a dog that gets very excited around feeding time…or totally out of control. You need to pick a time and wait it out. You need to narrow their focus. Put the food in the bowl, and walk to where you are going to feed them. Say nothing as you hold the bowl of food about chest high. Hold this position until the dog calms down to your liking. This teaches the dog that being given food like all other attention only comes when you are calm. You can prolong this as long as you want. Begin to put the food down, as the dog approaches or gets excited, stand back up. Remember, it is all about eye contact, movement, and touch. By not clouding the waters with speech and unnecessary movement, you are encouraging your dog to relax and focus on you to get what they want. If people only knew how much of a difference it would make with their dog if they just did this once or twice a day with their dog.
The key to adding good habits is to piggyback them onto existing ones. It breeds consistency and opportunity to create positive rituals. You are feeding your dog every day anyway so why not use it to your benefit.