Top Five Things Your Dog Can Do to Earn Dinner

In my first class with clients, I always tell them that they need to take the dog food out of the bowl and make their dogs’ work for dinner. You paid for the dinner and now your dog should have to earn it with good behavior. What kind of fun tricks and activities can you come up with for your dog’s job for the week? Here are just a few suggestions:

1.    Look At Me Game

Take a piece of kibble and throw it on the floor close to your body. After he eats it and looks up at you, reward him with a YES and throw another piece on the floor. Play this for a few minutes each day and this simple game will teach your dog that looking at you earns him the next piece of dinner. You can start to add a Watch command just before he lifts his head to look at you.

2.    Name Game

Take a piece of kibble and toss it on the floor about 5 feet in front of you. Use the command “GO” and once he eats kibble, call his name. When he returns to you, reward with a piece of kibble from your hand. The game now starts over again with a kibble toss to the floor.  As he becomes better at responding to you, increase the distance of the throw.

3.    Puppy Ping-Pong

This is a simple way to improve your dog’s recall but you will need a helper. Each person will take a handful of kibble and put it in a pocket. Start out in a place with low distractions and stand at a distance of less than ten feet from each other. Practice calling your dog’s name and having him run to you. When he makes it to you, reward with a piece of kibble and then the other person calls the dog. As your dog’s speed increases, you can move to other parts of the house and increase your distance. We slowly increase the distractions and distance as the dog is finding success in responding to his name. The goal is to call the name only once each time and get a quick head turn and dash off to the next person. This game can easily create a tired puppy.

4.    Kong Wobbler

One great product that I highly recommend to clients is called a Kong Wobbler. You can fill this toy with kibble and your dog can to bat it around with a foot or nose to get the food out. This will keep your dog busy as you are trying to cook dinner, watch TV or engage in any non-dog focused activity.

5.    Sit for Attention

What it your dog had to earn his dinner by sitting for any attention? If you have friends over and your dog wants to jump to greet them with a slobbery kiss, it might be better to have them reward with a bit of dinner for a polite sit. If your dog wants to go out the back door then maybe a sit would open the door.  Think of how many pieces of kibble you could give your dog for offering the correct behavior. If we reward a sit, we will get more of them. The reward is simply something that was once free out of a bowl.

Please be sure keep training sessions short- five to ten minutes is plenty and be sure to stop before your dog becomes too tired and is no longer in the game. If your dog is not into his food, even if fed out of your hand, you might want to switch to a food that he enjoys a little more. Get creative and think of fun games that you can play with your dog so that dinners become a little more interesting than just kibble in a bowl.  It should all be about creating a relationship and also a well behaved, polite dog that never assumes that everything in life is free.