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If you are completely happy with your dog's behavior and temperament, then you can feed your dog however you please, including from a bowl. That said, it won't be much fun, or interesting for your dog, it won't improve your relationship, help your dog feel confident and comfortable, or teach your dog any valuable skills.

However, if you would like to change anything about your dog's behavior or temperament, and especially, if your dog has any sort of anxiety or fearfulness problem, then food is an invaluable tool that you should use in training.

If you'd like to learn more about how to use food in training, you should keep reading and then enroll in our free course; Six Simple Steps to Solve Your Dog's Behavior Problems.

Or, join the Top Dog Academy to get access to ALL of our online courses, plus our private support community, for just $20/month.

Food in Training

Food can be a wonderful tool in training because it allows you to communicate with your dog. All dogs understand food, enjoy food, and find food to be interesting, and you can use that in all sorts of ways.

Food for Classical Conditioning

One of the most valuable ways to use food is for Classical Conditioning, to build a dog's confidence and help them feel comfortable around people, dogs, or things that make them anxious or frightened. Classical Conditioning is a simple process, and we've created a DADD all about it.

When you use Classical Conditioning, it's best to use a LOT of food. The more repetitions you do, and the more pieces of food you give your dog, the more your dog will learn. So if you want to get your dog to like something, or to stop being afraid of something, it's well worth using all, or at least most of your dog's food for this training.

Watch the World

One of the best ways to use food is to teach your dog to feel comfortable in unfamiliar or exciting situations, around unfamiliar or exciting people, animals, or things. If your dog feels anxious about something, you can just sit on a bench a good distance from that thing with a big bag full of your dog's food and hand-feed your dog the food, one piece at a time, while you watch the world from a safe distance. A few meals fed this way can do wonders for your dog's confidence.

Collar Grabs

You can also use food to teach your dog to enjoy being handled and one of the most important types of handling is taking hold of a dog's collar. Many dogs learn to dislike it when someone reaches for or takes hold of their collar, because it often precedes something unpleasant, like a punishment, or the end of a fun activity. Flip this around by taking hold of your dog's collar and then giving them a food reward. Repeat this enough and your dog will learn to love it when you reach for their collar.

Hug/Restrain

Teach your dog to enjoy being held/restrained by pairing this experience with food rewards. This will help your dog feel comfortable and relaxed if you, or anyone else, ever needs to restrain your dog, possibly at the vet clinic or groomer. You can also use food to teach your dog to enjoy it when you handle their paws, ears, belly, tail, look in their eyes, look in their mouth, trim their nails or brush their coat, or do any other sort of handling or grooming.

Chill in the Car

Some dogs dislike spending time in the car. Being in a moving car can feel unpleasant and sometimes, car trips can lead to places dogs don't like. Teach your dog to enjoy spending time in the car by feeding a few meals while you relax in the car together, without going anywhere.

Toss into their Crate

It's incredibly helpful if your dog enjoys going into and settling down in their crate as well. This can be great for day-to-day household management, as well as travel, emergencies, and anytime your dog wants a little alone time. Toss food into their crate to help them for a positive association with going into, and spending time inside their crate.

Settle Down on their Bed

Your dog may already enjoy settling down on their bed, but you shouldn't take it for granted. This is one of the behaviors that you most want to encourage. Notice when your dog is quietly settled down on their bed and praise and reward them for doing so. They'll learn to love settling down on their bed even more, making it much more likely that they will do so on cue, and not just when they want to.

Toss to Floor 

If your dog is hand-shy or wary of people, tossing food to the floor is a great way to help build their confidence around people without putting them under too much pressure. Over time, it's good if you can train the dog to the point where they are totally comfortable taking food by hand, as that will help them feel even more positively towards people. If your dog is happy to take food by hand, you may want to skip this one. Eating food off the floor can be a dangerous  habit for a dog to pick up, should they ever come across poison, medication, or something else that could harm them.

Food for Lure Reward Training

The other very valuable use of food is for Reward Training. You can use food to lure your dog into performing behaviors that are useful, and then you can reward your dog when they do so, making it more likely they will do these behaviors in the future. You can teach your dog to perform these behaviors on cue, and then motivate them so they want to listen to you and do what you ask.

When you start teaching a new skill with lure reward training, you will use a lot of food, but as you practice, you'll want to start phasing out the need for food. First you'll stop using a food lure, and then you'll reduce the frequency with which you give food rewards. You won't need to use very much of your dog's food in training, but you also want your dog to value the food that you do use, so it's still best to avoid using a food bowl, which will teach your dog to take food for granted.

Sit on Cue

This is one of the easiest and most useful skills you can teach your dog with Lure Reward Training. Use food to lure your dog into sitting and reward them when they do so. Once they get the hang of this skill you can start asking them to Sit when you aren't holding any food, then reward them from your pocket, or from a jar on the counter, to teach them that they should listen to you even if you aren't holding any food. If you can get your dog to Sit on cue, promptly and reliably, you can resolve a lot of common dog behavior problems.

Stay

Getting your dog to Sit on cue is wonderful, but you know what's even better? Getting your dog to Sit and Stay until you release them. Or Down-Stay. Or even Stand-Stay. A solid Stay is incredibly useful when it comes to managing your dog and food is a great way to reward and motivate your dog when you are working on teaching a reliable Stay.

Release an Object

This is another essential skill that every pet dog needs to learn. Getting a dog to release an object can be tricky, especially if it's an object the dog values a lot. By far, the easiest way to do this is with a piece of food. Simply present the food and your dog will happily drop the object to sniff and take the food. Of course, this won't work if your dog doesn't think food is particularly interesting or valuable, which is exactly what they will think if they get to eat their fill from a bowl.

Come

Coming when called is another essential skill that you should reinforce heavily, and food is a great way to reward this behavior. You may not need to use food to lure your dog to come. If your dog is far away, they may not know you have food, and you may have to use your voice and body language to lure them. When they do come to you, you should always reward them, either with food, or enthusiastic praise, or play, or something else they like. If your dog isn't coming when called, you may need to use a food lure. In which case, go up to them, put a piece of food in front of their nose to get their attention, and then back away and ask them to come to you.

Shush

Food can also be very useful for getting a dog to stop barking. If you put a piece of food in front of your dog's nose, they'll want to sniff the food, and it's impossible for your dog to sniff and bark at the same time. Once they stop barking you can reward them. Next, you need to put barking on cue, teach your dog to remain quiet for longer and longer periods of time to earn rewards, and notice and reinforce your dog when they are quiet.

Food for Passive Training

Sometimes you don't have the time or energy to use your dog's daily serving of food to actively train your dog. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways you can feed your dog that don't take a lot of time or energy from you, but will still help your dog. A lot of pet dogs have too much free time on their hands, and not enough to keep them busy. Your dog needs an appropriate hobby so they have something to do with their excess time and energy when they're bored and they don't have anyone to play with.

Hollow Chew Toys

Chew toys are wonderful because dogs have an innate desire to chew, and chewing can help some dogs relax. There are lots of things in your house that you don't want your dog to chew on, so it's best to teach them what you do want them to chew. The easiest way to do this is by getting hollow chew toys and filling them with food. If your dog plays with it, food falls out, and they get rewarded, so they want to play with it and chew it more. The Classic Kong is one of our favorites, as is the Planet Dog Snoop. 

Snuffle Mats

Snuffle matts are big mats made of lots of strips of fabric that make mealtimes much more fun and interesting for your dog. Pour some dry food onto the mat and give it a little jiggle and the food will settle into all the cracks and crevices and then your dog will have to sniff it out to uncover the food. This gives your dog a fun project, helps them use some of their energy, and keeps them occupied for a while.

Puzzle Feeders

There is a wide and expanding world of puzzle feeders for dogs that are easy to fill with food, but will require your dog to use their brain and dexterity to get to all of the food. Like Hollow Chew Toys and Snuffle Mats, these are a great way to feed your dog that will keep them occupied and give them an activity to do when they are alone.

That's not all...

These are just a small handful of the many uses for food in training. If there is anything that your dog is fearful or anxious towards, you can use food to help them overcome that problem. If there's any skill or trick you want to teach your dog, you can use food to help teach it and motivate your dog to want to do it.

LEARN MORE

If you'd like to learn more about how to how to use food in training you should enroll in our free course; Six Simple Steps to Solve Your Dog's Behavior Problems.

Or, join the Top Dog Academy to get access to ALL of our online courses, plus our private support community, for just $20/month.

Looking for more DADDs (Dunbar Academy Downloadable Documents)? You can find them here.

And if you feed your dog a diet of raw or wet food, you should check out this DADD.