Using food to support your dog

Using treats to train a dog often gets a bad rap.  Some people think that giving out lots of treats means you’re bribing your dog instead of teaching them to perform a behavior independently.  This glosses over the enormous benefits that using food in training has for your dog .  When used appropriately, food can turn a scared dog into a confident one and a pessimist into an optimist.

First of all, eating is calming for dogs.  In a high-stress situation, throwing food on the ground can help your dog calm down and turn off their sympathetic nervous system, or “fight or flight” response.  Dogs who are overwhelmed by a situation can use food to help calm down so they’re able to respond appropriately to the environment.  It has a similar effect to us taking 5 deep breaths – it slows our stress reactions down enough that we can think instead of just reacting. 

Secondly, food can help change an insecure dog’s emotions.  Dogs who are nervous at dog camp get lots and lots of treats.  They get treats for relaxed behavior, for coming to check in with me, if they handle an interaction with another dog well, if something freaks them out, etc.  All this food helps change the way they feel.  Instead of feeling that a particular experience is scary, they’ll begin to associate it with food.  And food makes them happy and calm!  Over time, this emotional shift can change an insecure dog into a happy and confident one.   

Last of all, dogs love to eat!  If training isn’t fun, it won’t work.  I tell clients to end every single training session on a good note.  Every time you work with your dog, they should be having fun.  That’s how you build a positive, trusting relationship with your dog, and how you create an optimistic dog.