Help For Dogs Refusing Treats: Case Study With Training Plan #179
Shaped by Dog with Susan Garrett
DogsThat
4.8 • 679 Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2022
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Visit us at shapedbydog.com
My dog won’t take treats outside! Is that something you’ve ever said or heard? We’re looking at the challenge of a dog refusing treats as a case study, as training will be so much easier if your dog loves food, especially if you are working on things like loose leash walking or helping your dog with reactivity. I’ve got an outside the box training plan for you to get your dog loving treats no matter where you are.
In the episode you'll hear:
• The physical reasons a dog might be refusing to take food treats and why to rule them out.
• How not taking food could be a habit for a dog and related to their emotional state.
• Why reinforcers lose or gain value in different environments.
• That getting a bigger meatball is not always the answer.
• Why feeding dogs should be an event and what to notice about your dog’s weight.
• About rating all of the treats that you can give your dog and different foods to try.
• The steps for testing treat values in different rooms and times of the day.
• About creating positive triggers for your dog that are exciting.
• How to transition using treats from indoors to the outdoors incrementally.
• What your dog’s physiology has to do with treats and how you can change it.
• What you need to do before you can start counterconditioning anything.
• Why training isn’t about work but building deeper bonds with dogs.
Resources:
1. YouTube Playlist: Reactive or Aggressive Dogs: Key Insights with Susan Garrett - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLphRRSxcMHy0Tbd6ZybIXgJk3mtpBLLk7
2. Podcast Episode 59: Why Your Treats Aren’t Working for Your Dog - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/59/
3. Podcast Episode 92: Avoid This Big Mistake When Feeding Your Dog - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/92/
4. Tasty Treats eBook - https://dogsthat.com/tastytreats/
5. Podcast Episode 107: Pedicure Please: 3 Steps To Dog Nail Trimming Or Grooming Success At Home! - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/107/
6. Blog Post: Identifying And Using Positive Triggers For Your Dog - https://susangarrettdogagility.com/2019/01/positive-triggers/
7. YouTube Playlist: Loose Leash Walking with Susan Garrett - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLphRRSxcMHy1mGMfdVKXq_hiJ27Ej1shW
8. Podcast Episode 68: 3 Easy Tricks Every Dog Should Know - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/68/
9. Podcast Episode 112: Stressed Dog? How Trigger Stacking Might Be Putting Your Dog Over Threshold - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/112/
10. Watch this Episode of Shaped by Dog on YouTube - https://youtu.be/lSoSuz2hV3g
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Every once in a while we get a note from the listener saying, my dog won't take food outside. |
| 0:04.5 | And so I don't know how I work on things like loose leash walking or reactivity when he just |
| 0:09.4 | won't take food. I thought, it's not really that common problem. However, we could turn it into |
| 0:15.8 | a case study and make it super interesting for everybody. So, that's what we're doing today. |
| 0:20.9 | Hi, everybody. I'm Susan Garrett. Welcome to Shape by Dog. The more people I ask, |
| 0:35.4 | the more I realize this problem actually is more common |
| 0:38.3 | than you would think that dogs just don't take food and people say, oh, that's easy. Let's just |
| 0:43.8 | train with a toy. Well, that gets cumbersome. And if you're working on reactivity, it may or may |
| 0:49.2 | not be a great idea to get that dog super aroused with a toy. Food is really the number one thing you |
| 0:55.9 | should be considering when you're working with your dog, when you're trying to overcome anything |
| 1:00.1 | or building new behaviors. It's just so darn easy, boom, in their mouth gone. It's so much |
| 1:05.6 | easier if a dog loves food. So, why would a dog not like food? Why would a dog not want to take food outside |
| 1:13.6 | in particular? It could be a number of things. Now, first off, it could be the dog's health. They |
| 1:18.9 | may be sick or they may be in pain. It may even be low grade, like a GI problem that may not be, |
| 1:25.7 | you know, just an ongoing thing, but you really want to rule that |
| 1:29.1 | out before you go too deep into the weeds of training. Now, it could also be a habit that |
| 1:35.3 | unfortunately, the habit gets conditioned over and over again. Like, I see this in sports. |
| 1:42.3 | I see this all over when a dog gets worried and they stop |
| 1:47.5 | like taking food or they won't do anything. The owners start saying things like, it's okay, |
| 1:53.5 | add a boy. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it. |
| 1:56.7 | All these words. Now, I'm not saying we are reinforcing the dog by saying those words, |
| 2:03.7 | but what we are doing is potentially building a trigger that I hear these words and it triggers |
... |
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