Food Refusal

I’ve covered just about every topic in dog training both here and on my youtube channel. However, I finally found a topic that I never addressed: FOOD REFUSAL. I’ve been asked several times to cover it, and have been reluctant to do so.

The reason I’ve been reluctant to do so is because the process is not pretty – and it can’t be taught positive ONLY. It is a LIFE SAVING skill that most dogs will NEVER need, but those that do, REALLY need it. There are people living in different areas of the world that truly love their dogs, but risk their dogs being poisoned by some very bad people.

Now, I will say this lesson is definitely not for everyone, so for those of you who don’t need it, take a look, learn and be grateful that you don’t have to teach your dog this. Food refusal is a skill that is practiced in some of the RING sports, but this skill is real life!

Again, this is not a sport dog, obedience dog or trick dog lesson – it is because I am very concerned about people who may lose their dog to poisoning.

Keywords for this lesson: food refusal, dog safety, dog training, join the lesson, ecollar, poison proofing

This lesson is taught in basic stages:

1. Be sure the food you use is very tempting to your dog.
2. The person who offers the food must be someone unfamiliar to your dog. NEVER do this yourself, unless you are out of sight of the dog.
3. The dog must, for the first phase, be set up to succeed. In other words, he can’t reach teh food. Run through this a few times. then bring the food closer.
4. I like to feed the dog in between from a bowl to show him when he can and when he can’t eat. He can NEVER eat from anyone but me or my family.
5. The dog can NEVER eat anything from the ground.
6. The correction must be immediate and strong enough to prevent the dog from breaking through the pressure.
7. This is best handled by a very experienced handler / trainer.