간식에 동기부여가 안 되는 개? 개가 간식을 무시하는 이유, 해결 방법 및 푸드 드라이브 게임

yourself when you're terrified of something. It's highly unlikely that you want to eat at that moment. Now, when the anxiety comes down a little bit, you might reach for chocolate, but when you truly are afraid, you're not going to want to eat anything. So, dogs who have high anxiety or high fear, one of the worst things you could do with that dog is try to take them to an in-person class and have them learn in that environment because it's the last place they're likely going to want to take food. So, we want to develop that dog's food drive at home, the place they are most comfortable. Develop a food drive there. And when we can get it to a place where they are keen to play with you when you have food, then you can take your show on the road, but not until then. Because when there's an emotional trigger in our brain, we can't be in our thoughtful brain. Related to that, there's another emotional trigger in that the dog might be highly stimulated or highly aroused, or potentially the environment is overwhelming. My Border Collies will often get, especially as puppies will get into that state. So, my puppy prophet does not want to take food if he can see the other Border Collies running. No, I just want to chase, just want to chase, just want to chase. It's impossible. Now, tater salad, I don't think there would be a time he wouldn't want food, but possibly if he saw a rabbit and I was offering him a boring treat, he might say, no, I don't, I am not interested in that treat. If it was a super high value, he is so food driven, he might. But with my Border Collies, when they are doing work like agility or something they love, almost every single one of them will go through a period as an adolescent where they say, nope, can't take food, just want to do agility. Nature, nurture, they're over a stimulator, they're overwhelmed. We just need to get them into a place where they will take that food, which means you get them out of that environment. So, if you're in the midst of agility all around you and they can't take food there, get them off the field, put them in your car. Can you take a cookie now? Yes, I can. Now, let's go back to play. You can overcome those dogs that are highly aroused, that are overwhelmed by excitement and you can get them so that when they are in that place, they will take food. And we need to get them there because if you go back to podcast episode 191 and you work on the relaxation protocol at home, and then you take that relaxation protocol on the road, you will get

to a place where your dogs can relax. But it all starts with food. Reason number seven, you may have a dog like my dog, this, who I described in podcast episodes number 203 and 204. And this, he had a GI problem and it wasn't obvious to me. She didn't vomit. She didn't have diarrhea. She just was getting too much protein for her body to handle. And it caused a problem with her brain functioning. So, it could just be as simple as that. Vissy now loves food treats, but early on, she was okay with high value treats, but any kind of environmental stimulus could turn her off and she wouldn't eat food. So, it could be a physical problem that your dog has. So, I say GI, but it could be pain anywhere in that dog's body, pain or discomfort anywhere in their body. Heck, I know of one of my students who their dog had some boils in their mouth because of a food allergy and they weren't keen on food. Another one of my students, their dog had a horrible overbite. And so, what they didn't know is the bottom teeth were hitting the inside of the roof of the mouth and they had all these pus filled, sorry for the graphic description, sores in their mouth. No, they weren't keen on food. They weren't keen on anything. They were in pain. They were feeling uncomfortable. So, something physically wrong with the dog, that could be a big reason why they're refusing food. Reason number six, food hygiene. Yeah, this is a biggie. You may actually be contributing to your dog not feeding well if the food hygiene isn't where it should be. Meaning, are you buying one of those monster bags of kibble to save money? Do you know that that kibble goes rancid super, super fast? And so, you might be feeding your dog rancid food. Buy the smallest bag that your dog will go through in the next couple of weeks. And then just buy another one or buy a big bag if you want to, but freeze it. Or better yet, move to raw. Also in line with the hygiene is, are you making sure your dog's bowls get thoroughly cleaned after every meal? So, we wash our dog's bowls with hot, steamy, soapy water. And every night, all the bowls go in the dishwasher. So, that could be contributing to your dog not feeling their best. Reason number five, too little activity. So few dogs get regular exercise every single day. I mean, out for a very brisk walk, an opportunity to do some sort of physical activity, a game of tug, a game of retrieve, a game of, you know, walking, doing some canine parkour, anything to get the dog's heartbeat going. Because don't you feel a little more hungry after you've had a real active day?

Well, if you want to increase your dog's food drive, how about you start by getting them off the couch and getting regular physical activity every single day. Reason number four, the value of your treats. Number one, you might have started off with high value rewards, but you're using the same ones you've always used. Variety is your friend. So, you want different value food rewards, but you want to mix up what the highest is. It could be roast beef. It could be roast chicken. It could be liver pate. You want to mix it up freeze-dried sardines. Find out what your dog goes gaga for, and then mix that up so they only get it once in a while. Don't go, oh, this is what he loves best. And then give it to him until he's like, oh, I don't really like it anymore. I don't think that could happen for with me with chocolate, but I wouldn't mind having a try. I digress. Reason number three, how you're presenting the treats will have a massive impact. So, if you're just going like, do you want this or not? If the dog has really good food drive, they're going to go, yeah, of course I do. But if they're just, no, I can do without, then they're not really going to be interested in it. So, you could do things like toss the treat in the corner or get them to chase you, and then they can eat the cookie off your hand. Get more exciting when you deliver the food. So, not only use higher value food, but be more exciting in the delivery of the food to the dog. Reason number two, why your dog may not be interested in food. And this is a biggie, overfeeding. It could be your dog's overfed because you free choice feed. Meaning you put a bowl of food down there and you leave it there. Maybe you add, you top it up every day or you change it out every couple of days, but there's always food for the dog in the bowl. And so, they're like, yeah, it's there. I want it. I'll take it. If you feed your dog one or two meals a day, our dogs get one meal a day where you put down the bowl and then you pick it up after five minutes. Now, if they're still eating, you know, don't pull it away from them. But as soon as they walk away, it's done. Yeah. Party's over. Come back here when the restaurant's open again. Don't leave the food down because trust me, it's not going to encourage your dog to have more food drive. It's going to go in the opposite direction. Second cousin to that is too many treats between meals. Now it might not be just you. It might be like family members. Do you realize that the average sedentary dog only needs

20 calories per pound of body weight? So, if you have a little five pound lap dog, they need like a hundred calories a day. I remember going through the donut shop drive-through to get a tea and they would always say, hey, can we give your dog a donut hole? Do you know that a donut hole is 80 calories? If your dog should only have a hundred calories a day, instantly they're being overfed. So, too big a meal or free choice meals or too many treats between meals, check every family member. If everyone just says, oh, I just give them one little treat. It adds up my friend. That could be why your dog really doesn't have much drive to work for food when you want to train them. Now check with your veterinarian on this one. One thing that I would like you to try is say, we're going to try a 12 hour fast with a dog. So, for 12 hours, there'll be no snacks, no food. Then try and do some training. Is your dog interested in the food training then? If not, like you've changed everything else. You've got your high value food. You're taking your dog for exercise. Now you're trying that 12 hour fast. If that doesn't work, try a 24 hour fast. Again, consult your veterinarian if you're concerned. Some breed, big dogs in particular, maybe shouldn't go 24 hours without food. 24 hour fast and see if that changes with all the other changes I've suggested. See if that changes your dog's drive for food. But overfeeding, inappropriate feeding between meals, that could be the reason your dog doesn't have a lot of food drive for training. And the number one reason I believe that many dogs do not have a high drive for food is that food refusal has become a reinforced behavior for the dog. What do I mean by that? Your dog says, I don't really want Cheerios. You go, oh, okay. Well, I've got some, oh, I got Odeo. How about Odeo? No, Odeo is the same as Cheerios. Okay. Well, I got, I got some roast beef. I got some roast beef. See, now you're talking. I want the roast beef. Why didn't you offer me roast beef? Okay. Okay. I'll be better next time. So, your dog said, I don't want that. And you said, oh, okay. I will give you something very valuable for saying I don't want that. So, what do you do if your dog says, I don't want that? What you can do is just take the dog out of your training spot, move them to a different spot, present it in a different way. See if that makes a difference. But what you don't want to do is say, I will go to a different source. If you put down a bowl of food and your dog says, yeah, I don't want that today. Then you don't go, oh, I'll run out and get a new

brand of dog food. Let's try this one. I'm not saying that your dogs don't have the right to have preferences. For example, Kim's dog Belief does not like potatoes. And the funny thing is, Tater Salad got his name. Kim named him because she loves potatoes. So, we feed our dogs raw. They get chunks of fresh steamed vegetables and Belief will always leave her potatoes. So, we just mash them up and mix them up with other things. Nope. That's not a big deal. She doesn't say, I don't want potatoes. And then we take out the plate of potatoes and say, oh, well, how about broccoli? Actually, she does love broccoli. So, you have to be very careful and think about the times when your dog said, yeah, I don't really want that. And you have reinforced their choice of saying, I don't want that by giving them something different, aka different is so often better. There you have it. The top 10 reasons that I believe so many dogs end up with very low food drive. But the good news is it's just a dog training problem. I know for many of you, if you just check yourself on these 10 reasons and make some adjustments, you will notice an increase in your dog's drive for food. But the good news is in an upcoming episode, I'm going to carry on with this topic and give you some games you can play that will increase your dog's food drive. If you are one of the people trying to train a dog who really is indifferent about food, you may think this dog training is never going to work for me. And you know what? You're probably right. Unless you have something of great value for the dog, educating that dog isn't going to work. We need something the dog loves. Something. And food is that best something that we can give them. And after today's episode, you will be well on your way to knowing exactly how to start creating food drive in your dog. What we talked about in episode number 269. Now there I listed the things you might be doing that actually is encouraging your dog to refuse food. Now let's do an overview of what your day and weekend life is like when we have a dog that we really need to encourage them to have more drive for food. First of all, there's the general exercise that the dog gets ideally daily. And that isn't just a walk around the block. Think about how much exercise you and I should have. Like, you know, experts say we should move every hour. Imagine if your dog got the chance to go outside every hour. I get it. That's not realistic, but don't think just a little walk around a block or two every other day is enough for your dog. We need them to get out and explore. And ideally,

I would like you to let them off leash run. Now I get it. That might not be possible where you're living, but check out and see if there aren't sniff spots that you can rent that you can let your dog off leash somewhere in your neighborhood or a little drive not too far out of your neighborhood. But most of all, it needs to be a safe place for your dog. If that's not possible, restraint recall. It could be as simple as your dog's on a long leash. Your friend holds your dog by the shoulders and you lead out, call the dog and run and have the dog chase you. Get them moving faster than a walk or a trot. Do that on a daily basis. And we're going to change your dog's physiology, which is going to change their need for nutrition and the way they look at nutrition. We're going to add some food into those restraint recalls down the road, but let's just get them happening to begin with. And if you don't have a friend, no problem. Two things you can do. Number one, go up to somebody that looks friendly in the park and you can just say, Hey, do you like dogs? Could you please just hold my dog while I recall him to me? The other thing, if that's a little out of your comfort zone, what I sometimes would do is I would find a smooth pole, wrap my leash around the pole. So now there's some opposition. The dog's on one side of the pole. I'm on the other. I would call my dog's name, throw the leash around the pole so that he would get a chance to chase me. Now that works best if you already have a history of the dog coming to you on a restraint recall. Please don't do that for the first time in an area that you aren't sure if your dog will come. All right. So getting them out daily for exercise. If they'll chase a toy, that's great. But also included in those walks is just some good old sniff time. Let them investigate, smell all the different senses. That alone exhaust dogs using their nose, taking it all in. So just a nice casual walk, some sniffing and some running, some getting the body moving. Now also you want to be sure there's some scheduled rest time throughout the day and the week. Sometimes, especially with new dog owners, they tend to overschedule their dog. We're going to go to this class on Monday and this class on Tuesday and this puppy play session on Wednesday and this, you know what? Just have some chill time with that dog. Let them learn how to relax. Practice the relaxation protocol. Like I spoke about in podcast episode number 191. We need them to know how to both have fun and how to relax. So we get them out for some regular

exercise, have some scheduled relaxation time throughout the week and ideally daily. Next, you're going to know what is super high value food to your dog. Now, if you're listening to this, you're listening to this because you want to create drive for food, but you need to experiment something like go to the grocery store and get liver pate. Or if you can find some dog treats that have beef tripe. My dogs go crazy for tripe treats. I'm warning you, they stink. They're horrid, but the dogs love them. Experiment. 20 different things that your dog may love. What you don't want to do is give the dog the same thing all the time. Variety is key. We're trying to create a value of reinforcement, an array of reinforcement. So try all kinds of things. Ask your friends, post on social media. My dog's a picky eater. Can you give me any suggestions of things that your dog absolutely loves? Right? And when you find something, don't go crazy giving it to your dog. Save it for special occasions. We want to use it, but we don't want to overuse it. So experiment with dry food, semi-moist food, and some moist food. Things like raw dog food. And if that grosses you out, you can cook that raw dog food. Things like, I mentioned liver pate. So dry, semi-moist, and moist. Those are really good things. But I would encourage you, please make sure they're still really nutritious for your dog. Ideally. I am pretty fussy about my own dogs. So there's some really great healthy treats that they will go gaga for. So it's exercise, it's relaxation, it's knowing what is the value of the food. Next, while we are retraining your dog, please don't ask them to take something you aren't 100% confident they will take. Now, I just told you to experiment. So you might put like a different treat on a paper plate and let your dog sniff them all. You might just put two or three. I got to tell you, you can increase the value of food right away by moving it. So you might put one little treat on a paper plate and move it around so your dog has to chase it in order to sniff it. See if that is a way to increase the value for the food. But what you want to make sure you don't do is don't ask your dog to take a lower value treat at a time when they're highly unlikely to take any treat. Lower value treats happen in the comfort of your own home when they're more relaxed and they're more likely to take it. But honestly, if you've got treats that your dog will sort of take occasionally, let's put those to the side for now. We're only going

to work with medium and high value treats. Eventually we're going to go back to those low value treats. I promise you, your dog will take those too and happily. Next, just know this is the long game. Your dog is highly unlikely to like magically develop food drive overnight. It could happen. It might start, especially when you add the gains that I'm going to teach you, but it's highly unlikely it's going to happen overnight. So know it's a process. Be patient. Take notes. This is where you are today. Take notes where you are tomorrow and next week. It will improve if you are patient. It's not that your dog is defective. It's just that your dog currently has a history that includes refusing food or saying, I don't want that. And we're just going to change that, but you need to be patient and play the long game. Recognize that reinforcement isn't a moment in time. It's an activity. So when we start playing these games, the reinforcement process starts the moment you say, yippee, or whatever you say to celebrate your dog doing something well. And it carries on to the delivery of the reinforcement for the dog, the placement of the reinforcement, how that dog receives the reinforcement. So those could all be different in that. I might ask you when you were playing one game to throw the reinforcement on the floor. That's the delivery. That's how the dog receives it. That's the placement. The next time I might say, call your dog and run away and give the dog the food while running. That's a different way for your dog to receive it, but it's all part of the reinforcement process. There isn't just a infinitesimal slice of time that tells your dog, that's right. And don't think about anything that happens before or after that. Reinforcement is a process. Keep remembering that. What we're going to work on with these games is what you've heard me say on this podcast many times before, a transfer of value. So what your dog loves most of all, we will put into the food we want them to love. So your first assignment is to think about activities that your dog loves. Is it going for a swim? Is it going to the park? Is it when your kids or your partner comes home from school or from work when they can anticipate that's going to happen? Well, if you have an activity that the dog loves, here's what I want you to do. Once you've identified what is a high value reward, your first assignment is to take a little piece of it and even put it on a paper plate, hold your dog by the collar, get them to see that paper plate moving, tell them to get it,

get it, get it, get it. And when he catches up to the food, tell him chow. It's on a paper plate. We are telling him you can eat it from this vessel. So get them excited. You're going to have him eat the food and then say, now let's go boom, whatever that activity is. If it's now let's go play Frisbee. Now let's go for a walk. Now let's go for a car ride. Now let's go see daddy's home. Whatever it is, is that activity. Eventually you could just give them a cookie, just say cook and feed them a cookie into the mouth and say, now let's go play Frisbee or whatever it is that we want to get a transfer of value. So whatever the dog loves, we're going to add food one little piece before we are going to do what the dog loves. Now scientifically, this is called the Premack principle in that if you do behavior A, you get to have behavior B. Where I've seen this go wrong is when the dog always knows behavior B is right there. Sometimes behavior B is so exciting, the dog just can't eat the food and that's not going to work. Sometimes the dog will say, okay, I'll eat the food because I know I can get behavior B, but I'm never going to eat that food when behavior B isn't right in my sight. So the goal, yes, you can do it when the dog knows you're about to do something, but the goal is to get them to eat the food in a quiet, calm way. And then say, now let's go for a walk or whatever it is that they love. So let's call it a surprise Premack that the dog doesn't have to see or know that what they love most of all is coming. The food happens. And then magically that great behavior that they love is going to happen next. And that's when we truly get the transfer of value. And if this hasn't worked for you before, I want you to ask yourself in great honesty, have you been showing the dog that big value thing behavior B first? I had a student many, many years ago in California and she had a terrier and she said, well, my dog loves to do the barn hunt. And I said, okay, well, let's get him to play with a toy before barn hunt, but you've got to drive around and not let him out of the, but she didn't. She would use, we're going to get the rats. We're going to get the rats. We're going to get the rats. And the dog knew he was at a place where there were rats. You want to do it where the dog doesn't know. So if it was barn hunt that your dog loves, then you're going to, you know, drive to the barn hunt, but don't let him out of the car, get him to eat a cookie and then say, let's go get the rats or whatever your cue to, we're going to go do barn hunt is. This student of mine did it for

years and never got a transfer of value. Never. Sometimes she'd let him see the rats and then take him back to the car and say, eat the cookie. And it was tug on the toy. It's not going to work. Not going to work. The value is too overwhelming. The transfer isn't going to happen because the dog knows. All right, I'll do that because I want to get what I want. But if what I want isn't available, I'm not doing what you want. All right. So it's surprise Premac. That is what is going to be your focus. And if the word Premac scares you a bit, don't worry about it. Just say to yourself, in order for my dog to get what he wants, most of all, he has to eat a cookie. And it's going to be a high value cookie for the next little while. And then you can go to a slightly lower value cookie if the high value cookies are working really, really well. And finally, I want you to understand the difference between celebrating a success and cheerleading in order to hopes to get a success. Because that is a big problem with a lot of people who want their dog to do something so much. I want my dog to tug with a toy. I want my dog to eat the cookie. And you get the dog, you go, do you want the cookie? Look at mommy's got the cookie. You're going to get this cookie? And it's cheerleading. All that I want you to do. Yes, we're going to amp them up for different things. But once we present the dog with the cookie, like here's the cookie, I'm going to roll it. And you can say, get the cookie. Then as the dog is getting the cookie, stop the cheerleading. Once they grab the cookie, whoa, you can go crazy. That's like a boy. That's so exciting. We're going to celebrate, not cheerlead. Wrap your mind around what is the difference. Now, second cousin to cheerleading, and this one I'm okay with, is before you let the dog go, you kind of rev them up and pull them back. Ready, steady, go. But as they're doing their thing, we're quiet, we're looking, we're observing when the dog does what we want, then we celebrate. This will make more sense when we're actually playing the games. But I want you to think about if the dog disengages, I don't want you to start to become a cheerleader to try to get them engaged. That was trial number one. It didn't work. Let's just, you know, take the dog back, put them up, let them chill for a bit, and we'll look at that game again and see what we can do differently. If a dog disengages from a rabbit, the rabbit doesn't stop and come back and go, Hey buddy, I'm right here. Hey, don't you want me? Come on, come on. Bunnies don't chase disengaged dogs.

So, if the sight of the bunny isn't enough to motivate the dog to chase, then the dog just doesn't chase. So, if what you ask the dog to do, one of these 10 games that I'm going to teach you isn't enough to get your dog excited about playing this food game, then don't chase a disengaged dog. A rabbit wouldn't do it and you don't have to do it. What you could do is go the other way and say, Hey, we're done. Let's go take off running. And he's going to go, wait a minute. This is where you hunt me down. No rule of the rabbits. We don't chase disengaged dogs. We want dogs to be in, come engaged, become connected to us and want to chase us. And that is exactly what's going to happen when you start playing the games I have for you in the next two podcast episodes. So, for now, I'd like you to go over the general steps that I've mentioned here today. Go to social media, get some help. What is the best treat or what is the best food reward that your dog loves that I can try on my currently picky eater? And hey, why not jump over to YouTube and use this video in the comment section as a way, if you're listening to this podcast episode and you go, well, my dog loves these things, come on over and write them and include the brand names. I don't care. Write them in the comments so people can come over and watch this video and refer to the comment section as a great resource for high value food rewards. Effective, efficient, and kind dog training involves the transfer of value. The thing you would like your dog to learn how to do, they are game to participate in it because of the reinforcement they earn for being part of your game. And so, for some of you whose dogs aren't super keen on any real reinforcement, today is for you. Because today I'm going to share with you 10 games that you can play with your dog to increase the value of the reinforcement you use in training. And if you think about reinforcement in the way that we use it in our training programs, there's three categories. There's food, there's toys, and there's activities. And I can use any one of those three things to reinforce any behavior that I want my dog to have value for. For example, if I want my dog to walk beside me and my dog would prefer to chase the other dogs, once I get like one step of walking beside me, I can release my dog so that they can chase the other dog. That's an activity that I use to reinforce a behavior I like. Now, it's going to take a long time to train your dog to do anything using an activity that takes a long time for the

dog to process to reinforce just a moment of time in a response that you like. Therefore, things like toys and food are really more efficient when you're thinking of training in the long game. But if you have a dog who has somehow either been reinforced for, or just never really was keen on food, then training becomes a real burden for you. And so, I started this series back in Shaped by Dog, episode number 269, where I talked about things that you can do to help overcome what you may be doing, or maybe environmentally reinforcing your dog for turning down treats. And then in our last episode, number 271, I gave you some guidelines on how to set your training up. Well, today, I'm going to share one category of games that I promise you will boost your dog's keenness for food. Now, I break the games that I'm going to share with you into two categories. The first one is games of chase. Think about presenting your dog a piece of food. You just go, yeah, that was good. Here you go. Gives you kind of like the Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore kind of vibe, right? Eeyore going, yeah, here's your cookie. And the way that we're going to present the food reinforcement to your dog today is via a chase. So, think of Tigger reinforcing your dog. It's excitement, it's activity. It's more likely to change your dog's physiology and get them excited about wanting that piece of food. So, I'm going to share with you 10 games today that are going to be super easy for you to follow along. And if you're listening to this podcast, once you're finished it, you might want to jump over to YouTube where you can see actual demonstrations of each and every game that I'm going to share today. I'm going to start it out by reminding you, there is a possibility that the reason your dog is not keen on food is a physical one. They may be in pain. It could be a joint pain. It could be GI pain. So, make sure that you've ruled this out before you attempt to dog train because you can't dog train away pain. Deal with that first and then we help the recovering dog to find joy in their training. And we start by elevating the value of food to the dog. Now you might say, oh, Susan, my dog already likes food and you know, I can just go. These games you can use to elevate the value of a toy. So, you can just slide in what it is that you would like your dog to be more keen on. Maybe your dog loves tennis balls, but you would love for that dog to love a tug toy. You can use some of the strategies that I'm going to be sharing in the next two episodes, the games, you can use them to grow that value.

As a matter of fact, at the end of today's episode, I'm going to share with you how you can download an ebook that previously I wrote for my Recallers community, but we're now sharing it with our newsletter subscribers. And I want anybody listening to this podcast to be part of that community. So, at the end of today, I'm going to share with you how you can become a newsletter subscriber in order for us to send you a copy of this ebook. And it's all about building the motivational value of a toy, but there's some key things in there that will help with the motivational value of your food reward. So, let's start right off with chase games, chase games that are going to bump your dog's value for food. Think about if you just hand your dog a food versus the food's attached to a rabbit and the dog gets to chase the rabbit for that food. Which one do you think the dog's more likely to want as a delivery process? Definitely let's chase the rabbit for the food, but chasing rabbits is not very kind. So, we're not going to do that today. We're going to turn your dog's food delivery into games that's kind of like chasing your rabbit. And it begins with game number one, I call cookie bowling. Now, in order to be really effective with this, you want to play it on a smooth flat surface. Like a tile floor is ideal, unless your dog's a little too frantic and there's a worry that they might wipe out. So, something smooth. You can even play it outside on concrete if you have it, but outside on gravel, probably not a good idea because you're not going to be able to bowl the cookie as the name implies. We want to toss the cookie underhand. So, it comes out of your hand near the ground and it just rolls in front of the dog. So, having a smooth surface to bowl on is definitely an advantage. The second advantage is having a food reward that is round. So, you can buy some round treats for your dog, but you can also make them. So, start with something that is a size appropriate for your dog because we don't want to fill them up, but we want it big enough that the dog is enticed to want to chase. So, all that you do is you take the dog by the harness or by the collar. You're going to pull them back a little bit, get them excited, show them the cookie, say, ready, steady, or words that encourage them. And then toss the cookie right under their nose, not too far away. The first tosses no more than your dog's body length away. And you're going to toss it and tell the dog search. Once that you do that, you're going to get

up and run in the opposite direction. So, the dog will eat the cookie and then have to come and chase you. And guess what happens when they chase you down? They get a higher value cookie. Susan, I told you my dog doesn't like food, so why would they chase a cookie? Aha! You want to refer back to episode number 271 because that's where I talked about how to evaluate food, create high value food, make sure you have a hierarchy of food. And we're going to start food bowling with the highest value food that your dog has. And they will chase it. It's only a short distance. You're going to gradually increase that distance so you can cookie bowl, turn and run watching your dog as they pick it up. And then you're going to be quiet. You're going to resist the urge to cheerlead. Watch the dog pick up the food. When they turn, they see you running. And when they catch you up, you're going to give them a high value reward and give them a lot of celebration. When you run away from the dog, when you throw the cookie, you don't want to run too hard. You don't want to run too fast. Remember a rabbit that's too far from the dog, the dog's not going to want to chase. So maybe run on the spot until the dog picks up the cookie and then pretend to run a couple of steps. The dog doesn't have very far to go. They catch you up. They get another higher value cookie. Everything is amazing. So that is game number one, cookie bowling. Game number two, we now have a dog who we know will be keen to chase that cookie. We're going to go into a corner. So it's cookie bowling into a corner. We want to get at least, at least six to 10 body lengths away from your dog before we start this. By throwing it in the corner, we can control how that dog turns. And therefore we're going to be able to run further away because we're able to go a larger distance away because we're throwing into a corner because the corner is controlling the turn. You can run as soon as the dog picks up the cookie and run as fast as you can. Keeping a connection with your dog. Don't just turn and ignore them. Keeping that connection as you run away. But this time you'll probably be able to get further away and get that dog to move faster. All of that changing the dog's physiology is helping to build more value for the food itself. And now we're going to go to game number three, which is really closely related to the first two games. In this one, it's cookie banking. And think about a pinball machine. What we want to do is throw the cookie towards the corner, but have it hit maybe a stack

of books that change the trajectory. Easy for you to say, Susan. Change the trajectory of that cookie. So as the dog's heading for the book stack or whatever you're going to use to redirect the cookie, they suddenly have to go off in the other direction. You're not going to run and again, until the dog gets the cookie. And then you're going to have a great game of chase, ending up with a higher value reward. Now, if in the middle of either of these first three games, the dog says, Hey, that's a good cookie that I'm chasing. But the better one is actually when I catch you up and they just won't chase the cookie that you're bowling, then you need to change the value. Your dog is always telling you where the value is. So do a few games where the highest value reward gets bowled and a slightly lower value reward given to the dog when they catch you up. Okay. Game number four, you can incorporate it into the first three games, but it's cookies on the fly. And here's the thing. When I see people, especially in the sport of dog agility, they want to use food to reward their dogs. They often, if I say, run, let your dog catch you. When the dog catches them, they stop, they dig in their pockets, they get out a cookie. And then all that energy of the dog chasing and being excited goes right into the toilet as they wait for you to give them that cookie. And so, our fourth game is cookies on the fly. And for that game, as the dog chases you, it can be the back end of cookies in the corner, or you can have somebody restrain your dog so that you're just running away from them. But when the dog catches up, you have a cookie held in your hand. Your hand is facing towards the dog as they're running. They come running up beside you and just eat the cookie right out of your hand as you're moving. Hence the name cookie on the fly. We don't want you to stop. We don't want to lose the energy of that dog. We want you to still be that rabbit, albeit a slower rabbit, that the dog comes up and grabs the cookie while you are in motion. Part two of cookies on the fly is going to be cookies on the fly with a twist. And for this game, as the dog catches you up, you're going to reverse your hand. So, the palm of your hand was facing the direction the dog was going. As they come in to eat the cookie, you're going to flip your hand around and change directions into the dog. So, now the dog has to make one hairpin turn to chase the cookie back in the opposite direction in order to earn it. So, you're running away from the dog. The dog comes up on your right side. You just flick your hand away.

You're now going to turn and go back in the exact direction you just came from. That's just cookies on the fly with a twist or a hand flip. Now, game number six is again, very closely related, but instead of just flicking your hand, it's cookies on the fly with a turn, not a flip, not a twist. So, as the dog is coming and chasing you, you're going to plant, kind of stare at the dog, and turn into the dog. In agility, we call it a front cross. So, the dog doesn't go around your body. The dog was chasing on your right side and you turn so that the cookie is delivered with the left side. The dog turns into you, you turn into the dog, you're heading back in the opposite direction, but the cookie is delivered on the left, not on the right. So, that's cookies on the fly with a turn. Game number seven. Now, your dog may already do this one, but if they've never really been keen on food rewards, possibly not. And that is a great way to deliver food for your dog, especially if you're teaching them something away from you, is to toss them a cookie and have them catch it. But catching needs to be taught. And so, I like to start with my dog in a sit and I just hold the cookie. I start it maybe down near their face and draw it up slightly, maybe the length of the dog's body up in the air so that they can see it. And then I say, ready, steady, catch. I drop the cookie and it probably is going to bank off their face. They're not going to see it the first time. It's going to fall on the floor. You can say search and try again. Eventually, they're going to figure out that the cookie, they can get the cookie faster if they just track it from above. Now, if you have a dog that after you've played this several times, they just start looking on the floor saying, I'll just catch it from the floor. Well, if you have another dog, bring them in, provided you don't have a resource guarding problem. So that the dog that you're tossing the cookies to, if they don't catch, the other dog is going to get it off the floor before they do. Or you can just cover it with your foot and pick it up and try it again. We want the dog to care enough to try. Now, your cookies need to be big enough that the dog can track them. Maybe play around with a dark cookie versus a light cookie and see if that's easier for your dog. And something like this, another round treat might be easier for your dog to track. Once they're able to catch it from above and you've paired the word catch, which at first probably meant just let things bump off your face. You've paired that word with them actually

catching. Now, what you're going to do is go in front of them and toss it underhand, but say the same three words, ready, steady, catch, toss it up in the air so that it lands right in your dog's face. Now, you might want to practice your mechanics first. Just put a little box against the wall and practice approximately throwing it at the height your dog will need and see if you can get it to land in the box. If you can't get it to land in the box, then you are making it more difficult for your dog. So practice that first. But once you've got the dog that can catch treats, then all you have to say is catch from a distance, toss it, and they're going to be able to snag it from anywhere. A dog like Tater Salad, he could be running to me on a recall and I could throw my treat overhead and he can still catch it. He's such a great catcher. Game number eight involves a flirt pole. And the first game we're going to play is what I call Big Game Hunter. And for that, you're going to take a flirt pole and just get a length of string, cut the length of string and make it into a loop. So now we have maybe a loop that's about six inches long. You're going to loop one end of that loop through the loop of your flirt pole. And the other end, you're just going to fold it over so you can slide a high value treat into that piece of rope. So it can be a piece of beef jerky. We use rabbit rolls that we get from an indigenous supplier here in Canada. I love supporting this business and my dogs go crazy for these treats. Plus they're organic. Win, win, win. So you're going to just slide the treat in there and you're going to get the dog to chase the flirt pole. Hold them by their collar or by their harness. And you're just going to drag the flirt pole a little bit or drag the toy. You don't have to hold the end of the flirt pole, just the rope for now. A short distance, ready, steady, and tell the dog, get it, get it, get it, get it. Search just before they grab the cookie. Once the dog says, hey, this is fun. You can hold the flirt pole from higher up and maybe have them go in half a circle around your body chasing the reward before they can grab it. You don't want to tease this dog too much of half a circle around your body at first. Then you can introduce maybe a flip. So they start going in one direction and you just flip your wrist with the flirt pole and they circle back in the same direction before they get the big game hunter wins their game and gets that little piece of beef jerky or whatever you have in your little loop. Game number nine, flirt pole again, but this is chase the hidden

treasure. And for this, you need a food toy. So that is a toy that you can put a food inside. Now at first, you're just going to let your dog know there's something in there by having, I'm using a gamble ball here where I'll put a cookie in the gamble ball, have my dog chase the gamble ball in my hand and tell them cook when they get close enough to grab it. Then I'll cover up the cookie a little bit, let them chase it again in my hand. And then finally I'll cover it up entirely and let them chase the gamble ball in my hand, knocking it out of my hand. And then if the gamble ball needs your help to open it, but you know, sometimes they get used so well that as soon as they hit the ground, all the cookies spill out. Once they'll chase the gamble ball in your hand, you're just going to attach it to the little string that you had your big game on. And now the dog's going to chase the gamble ball or the food toy with the flirt pole. Remember again, only one or two steps, hold the dog by the harness, get them excited, get the food ball moving first, and then tell them get it, get it, get it, and let them catch it. And you open it up if they can open it up on their own, dump out the cookies. These are games that are going to engage the dog's prey instinct, chase instinct, and they're going to want to play your games. You're going to have now not only food that the dog loves, but a delivery system that engages the dog. And the final game really isn't a food game because now you can transition that flirt pole to just a flirt pole with a toy on the end that the dog chases. You can build up the duration of the chase. The dog's going to love it and you're going to have a handy toy that you can use to train anything. Okay. In addition to these games, the games of chase I've mentioned today and the games of restraint that I'm going to share with you in the next episode, I want you to think about celebrating big, not cheerleading while the dog is working, not cheerleading while they're chasing, celebrating when they get the reward. But also now let's introduce a little bit of anxiety, which people don't like to hear that word associated with their dog. Frustration slash anxiety enough to make the dog want it more. It can be as simply as opening up a bag of treats and saying in a really fun voice, Oh no, what is it? What's a mama got? As you pick up the cookie. If the dog gets excited and starts bouncing on you, that's awesome, but don't let them have it. We want to build up tension. So often people go, Oh my God, my dog loves food. I got to release that tension and give it to them. No,

a little bit of tension is a good thing. That tiny little bit of anxiety or frustration is what's going to contribute to your dog's food drive. So don't be afraid to crank them up a little bit before you start a game. And along the same lines, exactly what I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, I have an ebook that I want to share with you. It's an ebook I put together for our online classroom, our Recaller students, but I'm going to share it with you because it's going to be shared with all of our newsletter subscribers. So it's how to create a motivating toy in here. I believe it's on page six. I give you a step by step process of how to heighten the excitement via a little frustration and anxiety is a game that I started back in the early nineties with one of my Jack Russell Terriers to help build excitement for an obedience retrieve. And I've used it with every puppy ever since. And my students have used it with a great deal of success. Now you can use it with anything you want the dog to have value for. I used it for an obedience dumbbell. You can use it for a toy if you want the dog to have a motivating toy, but I also want you to use it with your bags of high value food rewards. So follow the process that's in that ebook. Again, I'm giving that ebook away free to all of our newsletter subscribers. So all that you have to do is click the link that you'll find somewhere in the show notes here, and that will give you an opportunity to sign up for the newsletter immediately. We're going to send you that ebook. Okay. Next up in this series, it's the games of restraint. These are super fun games. I promise you, you're going to love playing these games with any dog, no matter if they're already crazy about food, but just too much to add to one podcast episode. Do you have a dog who's really fussy about the type of treats that you give them? Then today is a great podcast for you because I'm going to show you how to get your dog grabbing treats no matter what you put in front of them. And if you've been following along, this is the fourth episode in a series on how to get dogs to love to take training treats from you. Now, if you haven't watched or listened to the first three episodes, don't worry about it. Listen to today's and then you can go back and listen to Shaped by Dog episode number 269, 271, and 272. Today's episode carries on from our last one where I introduced you to the idea of using exciting games to jack up the value of food for your dogs. Last episode was about chase games.

Today, we're actually going to amplify the chase by adding a wee bit of frustration to it in the form of restraining the dog. Now, don't worry if you don't have somebody to restrain your dog for you because you're going to do it yourself. I recommend you play all of today's games with your dog on a harness. But if your dog has never worn a harness before, then you need to get them used to that first. You can condition them and I know it's going to be tough because you're watching this because your dog doesn't like food. It's going to be tough because you have to use the highest value food there is. So, we're just going to get your dog used to wearing a harness. You can use the place your face game that I've shared on my YouTube channel. I'll put the link in the show notes. We just want to condition the dog to be okay sticking their head through a hole, aka the harness. Now, your dog's probably worn a collar so conditioning to a harness very likely won't be a big deal for your dog. But I put that up front because we don't want the dog fussing and being worried about a harness while we're trying to play a game that's supposed to give them drive and love for food. Get them comfortable with that harness first and at least a couple of days of wearing it before we go to the games of restraint. Now, we will eventually transition these games to a grabbing a hold of the collar, but because that will put pressure on your dog's trachea, I recommend you have a great big wide collar like a hound collar or one of the posh fancy collars that my dogs wear. They don't have to be fancy. I'm just kidding. But they really should be wide. All right. When should you be playing these games with your dogs? This is really important because in order to hedge your bets, in order to make sure you're getting maximum effectiveness from these games, you want to play the games when it's more likely your dog is going to want to be engaged with you. So, coming home from a long walk, maybe you've been out hiking with your dog, that's probably not the best time to play. They might be a little more tired. Likewise, right after you fed them a full meal, probably not the best time to play. So, you might want to just journal the times of the day when your dog appears more frisky. Yes, I'm asking you to get the frisky meter out and measure when your dog is a little bit more of a kook. So, I notice that with my dogs maybe just before mealtime or when somebody comes in. When I come home, if I've been away after a bath or when they just come out of

swimming, those are times when they're just a little bit more playful. And those are the ideal times to start to play one of these food games. So, today's games are all about games of restraint. In our last episode, it was all about games of chase. I recommend that you play those games first because what we're doing is we're adding a little bit of frustration to the dog. And ideally, we want them to know how to chase the food before we try to add the frustration to that element of chasing the food. But don't worry, these are all brand new games. Yes, I think I have six brand new games for you today. Game number one, circle chases. Now, just like any training game, it's really, really important that you get your mechanics first. And so, what we're going to do with this game, you are going to have your dog in a harness and your hand closest to the dog will grab the harness, playfully pulling the puppy or the dog back a little bit. In your opposite hand, you're going to have a cookie, high value cookie, something that the dog wants. And what we're going to do is we're going to put it right in front of the dog's nose, kind of teasing them, then pull it away a few inches. We're going to have the cookie on an open palm and you're going to keep saying, get it, get it, get it. Now you can hold the harness by your hand or what I like to do is put the dog on a leash and pull the leash back, which allows me to get further away. We want to make sure that the leash is pulled back on a 45 degree angle. So, your hand is going back over your dog's hips. If your hand goes up in the air, you're not creating tension back against the dog powering towards the food. You're creating tension up or worst case scenario, you might even be creating tension towards the food. That's not what we want. The tension on your hand goes back towards your dog's hips, right? So, that the dog is fighting against that tension. The key is the leash has got to be taunt the whole time, right from the beginning, because if it's loose on the harness and you say, get it, get it, get it. And the dog starts to chase. Then when that leash becomes tight, the dog's going to get jerked back. And that might be enough for them to say, this is a stupid game. I don't want to play your stupid game. So, if you're playing this on a leash, have it pulled, taunt, pull it back, get a little tension in that leash, put the cookie out in front. You're going to say, get it, get it, get it. As you move the hand, it's a circle chase. So, you're just going to turn around in a circle, not very much

at first, maybe just one or two steps. Get it, get it, get it. Just before you release the tension and let the dog get the cookie, you're going to say the word cook, which means you can take the cookie from my hand. So, it's going to look like this. Get it, get it, get it. You're about to release the dog, say the word cook, then push your hand towards the harness, which releases the tension and allows the dog to smash into that cookie and grab it. So, we're using resistance, which creates a little frustration, which creates a little more drive for what the dog is seeing. I want that cookie. I want that cookie. I want that cookie. Now, if your dog isn't going crazy for this, then you're either doing it at the wrong time, or you don't have a high enough value cookie in your other hand. So, make sure you start this game with the highest value cookie you have. Eventually, you're going to go to lower value cookies, but by playing the game, we're adding value to that cookie, right? So, it's cookie circles under tension to get the dog driving. Plus, they hear the cue, get it, get it, get it. That just means you now have permission to pull on this leash. So, for those of you who say, oh, Susan, I don't want to play your silly games. I'm going to teach my dog to pull on a leash and get a cookie. Oh, nay, nay, to quote the great John Panay. We are going to tell the dog, when you hear, get it, get it, get it, that's when you can pull on a leash. But when you're walking your dog, you're not saying, get it, get it, get it, right? So, they should have no business pulling on a leash. All right. So, that is game number one, circle chases. Getting the dog to chase in a little bit of a circle. And then when you're ready, say the word cook, release the pressure, let them dive on your hand. Once the dog has played this a couple of times, you can then try to get halfway around the circle. You don't really need to go a whole spin. Like you don't want to run the risk of getting dizzy and falling on your dog. That would ruin all the fun entirely. So, it doesn't matter how far you go. It's really about getting that dog to feel pressure and still want to drive for that food. It's jacking up the value of the food. Game number two, it's circle chases with a flick. So, you're going to start off exactly the same way. But what you're going to do is once you say, cook, and you release that pressure, instead of keeping your hand stationary for the dog just to grab it, you're going to rotate the hand around and move it in

the opposite direction. So, the dog's path ends up looking like an S. So, they're starting at the lower end of the S. And when you tell them they can get the cookie, you flick your hand. It's kind of like a backward C, I guess. It's not like an S at all. So, they're kind of going opposite to the direction they just went. It's just a flick of your wrist and the dog can go from chasing around your body in a clockwise direction to a flick of your wrist. Now they're chasing around your body in a counter clockwise direction. Circle chases with a flick. Now, with circle chases and with circle chases with the flick, super important that you play these games with both hands. These games are going to come in really handy for you. Maybe you want to just get your dog's attention when you're walking down the street because there's a black lab walking down the street and they just love black labs and they always want to play with every black lab they see. But if you have conditioned this game, this trigger in them that, hey, so much fun with me, far more fun than black labs, that you can then play just break out into game of circle chases. You know, maybe if you're walking in a really busy street, downtown city, maybe not a good idea, but in an average seat in an average suburb place, you'll be able to play this. Circle chases just pull back on their harness or circle chases with the flick going back in the opposite direction. Fun, fun, fun, but make sure you do it with both hands. I know it's going to be icky and awkward for you and you better practice your mechanics without the dog first to get it fluid so that there is no reason for the dog to be able to chase that cookie on the hand. Now you might say, Susan, this sounds like luring. I thought you didn't like luring. It isn't luring because we're not trying to create a behavior. We're trying to jack the value of food. What jacks the value is creating a tension, a resistance to getting the value. That increases the value for the dog. So, this is getting the dog to fight through something to get what they want. Now they didn't really know they wanted it until we started playing these games and suddenly they want it more and more and more. Before you know it, you have a way to train your dog because what used to be just meh to your dog is now, oh my gosh, this used to be an average cookie, but now it's just amazing because of all the games my mom plays with these cookies. Restraint game number three, restraint to the moving bowl. You will need a helper for this one. So, you know what, you haven't seen

your sister, your mom, your neighbor for a long time. Just invite them over for a coffee and say, I really need your help to help training my dog. So, could you please, you know, just come over. It'll only take a few minutes. Be nice to catch up and have somebody to help you train your dog. So, the way this works is you're going to need a dinner dish. You know, I'll just use the dish I feed my dog out of. We're going to play this with a training treat, but don't be afraid to do this exact game with your dog's meal at mealtime. Maybe even half the meal, get them eating at gobbling up half the meal, and then you can play it one more round, get them gobbling up the second part of their meal. But first we're going to play it just with a high value training treat. So, we're going to start at one end of the room and it's a straight line restraint. So, you're holding the leash or you can do it just with the harness. The leash is attached to the harness, got tension on that leash. And so, what we're going to do is we have the person holding the cookie at the dog's eye level, head level, and they're going to start right near the dog's face. And you can use your pump up words like, Oh, what's that? Do you want that thing? Do you want that thing? You've got tension on the leash that's pulling the harness back. Remember your hands over your dog's hips, or at least towards the middle of the dog's back. The person is going to move back away slowly. And you're going to say the phrase, get it, get it, get it, get it, get it. And when the dog is digging in, you're going to say, not cook this time. We're going to use the word chow, which means you can take the food out of the bowl. The person's backing away. You say, get it, get it, get it. And then say the word chow before you release the tension and let the dog dive their face into the bowl. Helper can put the food bowl on the ground and the dog just eats the treat out of the bowl. Fun, fun, fun. When the dog gets onto this game, you can have that person back away faster. Or, you know, if you're afraid of having somebody back and fall, they can hold it and face away from the dog, hold it at the dog's eye level and move away from the dog. But it's your job to say, get it, get it, get it. Say the word chow, release the tension, let that dog fly into the bowl. When the dog gets better, increase the distance, they're flying further. All right. So that is restraint to the moving bowl. Next game, restraint to the stationary bowl. You don't need a helper with this, but please do the moving bowl first. It creates a lot more

excitement for the bowl. With a stationary bowl, we're going to do the exact same thing, but the bowl can be like in a corner, so it's not going to move. You're going to pull the dog away, put tension on that leash or harness, get it, get it, get it, chow, release, boom. They fly their face into the bowl and they grab the cookie. Great game to play with a little bit of their dinner to help jack up that value. So restraint to the stationary bowl is something that I love to do to create value for my dogs, driving to a bowl if I want to use it for training and agility. I might put a bowl as a distraction in weave pole training. I'll let them pull me to the weave poles and as they're weaving, I'll say, get it, get it, get it, chow. Game number five. It's similar to one of our games of chase that we played in the last episode, but instead of restraining with the harness, we won't always have a harness on. We want to fade away from that. Yes, you can grab the collar, but I also want you just to restrain with the dog's shoulders. So that could be a single hand across your dog's chest, depending on the size of your dog and your strength, that might not be possible. So you might need to put two hands in front of the dog's chest. And what we're going to do is we're going to do cookie bowling into the corner, get it, get it, get it, search and take off and run. Very similar to cookie bowling by holding the collar, but we want the dog to drag you a little bit, get it, get it, get it, search before you turn and take off and run. So we call that PB&J, push back and jam, where we're pushing the dog away, creating resistance away from what they want. And then they fly, it's like a spring-loaded boom towards the cookie. And then you run in the opposite direction, they catch you up. You have a big celebration and it can include another cookie. Our sixth and final game of restraint is it's your choice. It's self-restraint. It's a game that creates anticipation for something the dog really wants, high value food. Now that we've played all of these games and you've altered some of the practices in your home, as I mentioned in episode number 269, and you start to create a general practices around your house. As I mentioned in 271, now we have a dog who really likes food. It's time to play it's your choice because here's what I noticed when people have dogs who aren't as driven for food or anything, they tend to relax rules, which is not a good thing to do because boundaries creates a little bit of an anxiety around getting that food. And that little edge,

that little frustration is what we call anticipation of something really, really exciting. That's what gets good stress in the dog's body. And so, now our dog knows what the word cook means. They know what the word search means. We're going to play It's Your Choice. And if you've never played this game before, I'm going to leave a link in the show notes so you can go to the It's Your Choice Summit and learn how to play the entire game. That is a game that is restraint, but it's self-restraint. The dog is restraining themselves because they know there are rules to getting that food. Now, like I mentioned in the last podcast episode, I have an ebook that I wrote for our Recallers community and I'm including it for all of our newsletter subscribers. It's got a lot of really good tips, even though it was written on how to create a motivating toy. Exactly the same strategies will apply to creating motivation for food. It's just an extra add-on. Some of the nuances of creating that anxiety with phrases like, Oh no, what is it? Of things like hiding food in a drawer and pulling it out like a big surprise. All of that is in that ebook. So, if that's of interest for you, check the link in the show notes, go ahead, join our newsletter list, and we're going to make sure that you get that ebook delivered into your inbox. There you have it. This is the longest series I've ever done here on Shaped by Dog. I think it was super important because if a dog doesn't have outrageous drive for food, honestly, training just becomes so problematic. So, for those of you who actually teach classes, this is a great series to share with your students. And if you're in a class, be sure to share this series with your instructor so that they can share it with other people. And if what I've shared in here for you makes sense and gives you an aha moment, please, I would love for you to go to wherever you're watching or listening to this podcast and give us a thumbs up or a review, including hitting the five-star review, because that's what allows people to say, this is a great podcast and it really needs to be shared by more and more people. This is all snuggle bugged, ready to binge watch some awesome video. What about you? Hit the subscribe button and be sure to turn on that notification bell so you never miss another video from us. Now, what say we go and hit the playlist and watch some videos of when you were a baby. Hey!