Crazy2Calm Working Paws

Training with Food (Patreon)

Published:

2025-02-21 01:02:21

Imported:

2026-06

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This is where the idea of "Ditch the Bowl" comes in, suggesting that you hand feed your dog during training sessions and enrichment feeders instead of a dog bowl. This is great, but I simply don't have this much time in my day in a multiple dog household. Instead I use a wide variety of feeding methods using a bowl for one of 2 meals a day and using alternative methods for the other meal. It's more important that you find a feeding schedule that works for you and your dog, than it is to try to follow someone else's schedule.

The act of training itself is often enrichment for our dogs! If we tailor our training to incorporate concept style training, teaching our dogs life skills instead of solely focusing on getting behaviors, we tend to help their brain develop stronger connections. Activating the brain and putting some of their mental energy to work to solve a problem is very enriching for most dogs.

When many people think about enrichment, this is where they stop as food related enrichment is the easiest to learn to use and apply to daily life. But our dogs have other needs!

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Puppy Push-ups with Belle

Canine Coach Penny uses treats to lure new puppy Adora “Belle” Chaos into puppy push-ups. This involves +R training taking her from a ‘sit’ to a ‘down’ and back to a ‘sit’ position. This provides great mental and physical exercise for the youngster. This is Belle's first day coming to the office with me and only her 3rd day with me. She has learned to do hand targets and follow my hand. At this point she is learning the hand signals for sit, down, and stand because the only verbal cues we are working on his her name and "go potty". She's learning really fast! And chances are she will forget much of what she learns this first week so I'm more focused on her learning that training sessions are fun!