Food Refusal

I want to teach my dogs this, especially Millie. Occasionally when she's working a child or someone will offer her food. She always leaves it when I tell her to, but I'm increasingly paranoid about poisonings and other things. I want to teach her not to eat something unless it's from my hand or her bowl.

Any advice?

Google poison proofing your dog. There should be several articles that come up related to PPDs and a couple of bite sports which require a food refusal exercise.

Most people I know who have attempted this (there have only been a few) fail because they set the dog up for an inconsistent experience. It's very hard to poison proof a dog who is used to hoovering cheerios off the kitchen floor. It also can be very difficult if the dog doesn't have a pretty controlled outdoor experience with the handler.

I'm actually going to start this with Logan pretty soon. I wanted to start it a while back but haven't got around to it yet. Sure, we've got the whole don't-snarf-food-off-the-floor thing down, but I want him to be actually poison proofed. He does have a terrible habit of digging in the corner between the wall and the refrigerator looking for stuff - whether it's a piece of the other dogs' kibble, a napkin, a toy, or a dish towel.

Ugh, I'm so clumsy, and when I feed my dogs I always end up dropping at least a morsel. I'll have to be way more careful with that.

I've looked at articles I've found online. Some of them I discarded right away, my dog is too sensitive for the harsh corrections they advise.
The rest sound fine at first, but then they tell me to use an e-collar for longer-distance work. I understand the logic, as it's an easy way to correct your dog from a distance, but I absolutely will not put an e-collar on my dog. Is there any other way I can get around that part?

Fishing line instead of e-collar. Light enough they won't really notice it's there. You might have to tie something on the end so you can hold onto it for corrections...or just stick them on a fishing pole :rofl1:

LOL! I don't have a fishing line or a long line. Ill just try to use the finest leads I can tied together or something.

Fishing line is pretty cheap, and it'll be a while before you're at that point.

True, though I think Millie will progress pretty fast. Millie almost always finishes her dinner before Lucy does, and even if Lucy walks away from her bowl, Millie will sniff the food and look at me, but she won't take it. It's the different environments and various values of the treats we'll be working on.

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Food refusal is easy when they know you're around. If you really want a dog to refuse anything it comes across or tossed by someone else when you're not around, then be prepared to do somethings you might not want to do.

If they just need to avoid things on walks with you, that's much easier.

Those are great. I wish I could find something exactly like that, but longer.

release the hounds, I know that an e-collar is the most practical way to correct a dog from lost a distance, but an e-collar is the worst thing I could do to this particular dog, and I'm not a fan of them anyway. I'm going to do my damnedest to try alternative methods.

Just remember not to rush her. If you push too hard too fast, you're setting her up for failure. Better to take a little longer than you think she needs than to blow it by going a little too fast.

Oh, definitely. Especially since she's so sensitive, I always try to set her up for success.
By talking about how sensitive she is so much in this thread, I'm making her sound defective or something. Really, she's the fastest learner I know (and yes, that includes humans ) A quiet "ah ah" is enough of a correction for her, and I almost ruined this amazing dog dog by using a lot of aversives with her when she was younger and before I knew there were other methods. I will not go down that road again.

I'm going to trust you know your dog better than I. I'm just wondering what level of food refusal you're looking for?

A very high level, which is why I'm puzzling over the ways I can do long distances.

By high level I mean don't eat anything unless it's from my hand or her bowl, regardless of where she is.

It probably seems like a lost cost to you (and I understand that, lol), but I'm pretty confident we'll find out own way to work through things.

squirt bottle/water gun?

Umm... yeah... I would never EVER collar correct or shock my dogs to get them to leave food on the ground. Why do something that you know for a fact will harm your dog, just to prevent a super freak, rare accident from happening? That is just backwards. But I would never harm my dogs for any reason, when there is always, always a force free method that works. And works better.

My dogs don't eat stuff on the ground, because I have taught them a very strong leave it with all food items on the ground, and practice regularly. I'll scatter tasty stuff all over the place, tell them leave it, and jackpot them from my hand for leaving it. Do recalls with a bunch of yummy chews and treats lined up beside them. Off leash at the park, they have ignored chicken bones and other nasty stuff. I don't leave my dogs outside alone. Poisoning is the least of my worries with a dog left out alone. Still, I honestly feel that my dogs wouldn't eat items on the ground, even Fozzie the piglet.

The trainer at my store taught her dog to leave food on the ground and animals alone from a long distance using an airhorn. It is much less damaging than a correction or a shock collar, IMHO.

why would I think you're a lost cause?

Thanks Erica, those are good tips. The problem I have is that if I tell her to leave something, she's great, but I don't want her to attempt to eat something in the first place.

Oh, I didn't mean to assume put words in your mouth, it's just since I'm dismissing so many methods it'll be harder to teach.