Socializing with Food - Dispenser Beware!

I love training with food. I even have to make myself take scheduled sabbaticals from it to ensure I’m not depending on it or using it incorrectly. Recently at a seminar I was giving I worked with a Doberman and her handler because in training the dog was “Perfect” but the moment the food was gone, the dog really changed. She became more environmentally aware, her performance was very lackluster and she was being corrected for lack of effort – but the corrections were doing nothing but kill the dogs attitude. It became very apparent that this dogs socialization skills were a product of a hidden sin – the dog never dealt with distractions because it was entranced in whatever smelly, slimy substance its handler had always pushed in its face.

Here are a few things to remember when socializing your puppies to avoid this happening to you.

FEAR is NOT all bad!

Every Handler wants a confident puppy, but very few dogs (even from the best breeders) don’t come out of the womb confident. It is learning to handle stress, release energy and clarity that make dogs confident.  When your 8 week old puppy shy’s away from the garbage truck – IT’S OK! The last thing you should do is present food in the place of leash pressure in these instances – luring the puppy to the distraction will only teach your puppy to avoid via fixation on food and when the food is there, the problem can be just as big as or bigger than before.

Smell is a Dogs #1 Sense!

The first sense a puppy gets is its sense of smell. It isn’t until roughly 14 days after birth ears and eyes begin to open, but by that time they had been using their sense of smell to locate a meal for two weeks. This makes smell a dogs #1 sensory. If you engage the sense of smell, you can turn a dog off to things around it. In essence, you are putting blinders on them. There is a place to do this and place not to do this and early socialization is one where you want to be careful to make sure the puppy is taking in things around it and not simply becoming entranced in cookies via avoidance.

Food is just a reward – it should be RANDOMIZED!

Lots of information has been said about this, so I will avoid repeating the same old obvious information. When a behavior is solid – sometimes it gets fed and sometimes it doesn’t. Many dogs have a tough time weaning off food because it had been a crutch and not a reward.

Sessions without food should be HIGH ENERGY!

Many people want to use food because it is easy. If you want your dog to learn to love work – you should break a sweat. Get down and dirty, playing like a dog to get your dog to engage with you – NOT a toy, NOT food, but YOU! Yes, you are going to run, pinch, grab, restrain, and hide from your dog. Yes, it is going to be strenuous! Yes, you are going to brave the elements of heat, rain, cold, and crazy awkward social situations to look like an idiot for your dog to learn to play with you without food. But hey, no one said this was easy!

Food should be used to negate corrections!

We are all familiar with the term “Lure/Reward” but I prefer “Lure/Correct” as it begins to counter condition the corrections I will be using on my dog. Additionally, it tells the dog that food will not take away stress – that only I have that power.

Remember – Life is stressful, training your dog should not be!