Are you the exemplary busy pet owner? Between work, family, and home care, it seems weekdays only allow time for feeding your dog and letting her out for potty breaks. We all fall into that category at times. (Thank goodness for weekends!) Mealtime training is the answer to building the behaviors you and your dog need to live a successful life together.
Mealtime is Training Time
Dogs love to eat. Preparing their food is exciting! You have their attention and you have a really great reinforcer right at your fingertips. Now, what are you going to do with those assets?
Reinforce Each Behavior
Small bits of food are available as you get dog meals ready. Don’t pass up this at-your-fingertips opportunity. Train! Between the steps of meal prep, give your dog a reinforcer for a behavior you like.
Recall
Before your dog automatically shows up to watch you get their food ready, call her! It’s a great time to do a recall repetition. This can also help you build your observation skills. You may have to watch closely to discover the chance to call your dog, before she catches the sound or smell of food prep and comes running on her own!
Sit
Sitting is probably the most common mealtime training behavior. Even if your dog is good at sitting, take a close look at the level of your dog’s behavior. Don’t settle for “good enough.” You can spice it up by putting yourself into different positions when you ask your dog to sit. If you turn your back, will your dog sit where he is, or does he think he has to go in front of you?
Turn your side slightly toward your dog. Get the food reward quickly to his mouth as you see his butt start to drop. This will help you communicate exactly what you want him to do and build his ability to drop in his tracks.
This is also a great time to practice releasing your dog from sitting to eat the meal when it’s time. Most people have two opportunities every day for mealtime training!
Mat
Mealtime training is great for practicing your mat behavior! Lying on a mat is very much like a “stay” behavior. It is so useful for managing dogs at the front door, in the car, during your own mealtimes, and more. As noted above, you need to continually reinforce behaviors during meal prep.
Tricks
Mealtime training gives you a chance to practice some of the tricks you’ve been teaching your dog, or even to start building a new trick. I have not taught Al to spin yet, so we started this one to show you how. The list of tricks you can train is almost endless, and so is the fun.
More Behavior Ideas
If you’re working on teaching your dog Cooperative Care to prepare him to relax and enjoy vet visits, mealtime training is a great time to practice. Simply choose a behavior and do a few repetitions, associating a procedure with bits of food from your dog’s bowl. You can handle ears, feet, tail, or look in his mouth. Practice gentle restraint for a blood draw, coupled with bits of food. Then deliver his meal at the end. After a few sessions, you’re likely to see your dog offering you his ears or feet, or leaning close to you for restraint! Be generous with the food. Remember, dogs learn from individual pairings of food with events and food with behaviors. Many repetitions are needed for mastery, and you have two opportunities every day for mealtime training.
Experiment with little bits of behavior on your own. What can you and your dog build together? Remember that everything you teach your dog has a chance to replace unwanted behavior like jumping up, mouthing, and more. Make your training plans accordingly.
Along the way, your training skills will get better as you learn to envision the final behavior while recognizing the tiny steps toward it that you can reinforce. This is the stuff of great trainers!
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