If you have a dog that experiences nervousness around food bowls or water dishes, what I mean
by that is if they stick their head in and they hesitate, you know when they're around
that because their collar hits on it and they need more courage. It sounds funny,
the concept needing more courage around a food bowl. But the reality is a lot of dogs are nervous
from the noise. So one of the ways to increase the confidence have a more courageous dog,
especially around food bowl or noises in general, okay? So it's a part of a socialization exercise
is he doesn't like this dish. I notice he was nervous of the, some of the noises of
it. So this is how he's going to eat. So I wanna show you, in this video, one of the techniques,
one of the things we'll do is we start to drop the food in. Now, I know you're like, why would you do
it? If he's nervous, he's in there. See his head's in there. Alright, see him jump. Now, I've done an
exercise here before this video, so he's not as bad as he was. I should have the camera on, but
See him like jump look.
It's getting better though. But basically you want to desensitize your dog to that,
that jump, that noise. You don't want him jumpy or nervous. This is also a way to get a dog
focused on targets, by the way. But putting some food down in there, getting his head in there.
And this is just one, like I said, little thing. Good job
there. So we have a little bit more. Now,
nervousness to that, just by touching that, banging it, okay,
see, just by adding this to the equation now,
nervous, you been still jumpy with this. All right, so I'm just kicking it up a notch,
here's another exercise for getting the dog even more confident and brave, and courageous around noise.
Notice he's good this way, not so much I guess he is gonna associate this bang
with food coming eventually. Now when I tap it, he backs up a little bit. That's,
that's enough. That's enough stress from this.
I even noticed. Watch the dog watch every little muscle fiber in the dog when I tap
even his back legs. Like, ooh. So we don't want to proceed or make it any more stressful,
but eventually as the sessions go on, almost like going to the gym, if you have five pounds and then
it's easy and you go to 10 pounds and it's a little hard, little hard after little reps,
couple sessions, it becomes easy. Then more and more so, more and more meaning,
more and more stress, or more and more, right? Challenging. And the more you do it not too fast,
Just little bits, little sessions at a time. Now you put the dog away to think about this
and they're thinking, eh, clang. Clang equals some food. Clang clang equals some food. And this goes
towards anything your dog is nervous of. So if this is the only way the dog's eating for this
week or this month, until he is super confident around all kind of clanging that makes these
noises and even things that are touching him, look, just gonna touch him with it, okay? He's
gotta come through this woods to get the picnic. There's the woods that he's just under. That's the
tree branch right now. Move it. He's nervous of that. So there's another, here's another exercise,
just it could be a stick or anything, right? Pet him. Good job, buddy. Look at that. Good.
Send him away. Watch this. Now why would I do that here? He hears the clang, clang gotta go through
the woods. That's more, more brave there. So this is just, I mean, it looks crazy socialization
to noises, Right?
I don't want a dog nervous and jumpy to these things.
I want them to be like, so what? Or wag their tail. That's even better, right?
Where the dog's actually learning is in the kennel. So after you're done an exercise, we're
gonna finish it here, right? Send 'em away. That's big session for him. Come through the woods.
Get, look, he's not even nervous of that anymore. Bang, bang, bang. So
there's eh, what a good dog. We're gonna end that, right? With just everything I got.
I don't have much left anyway. And there's how you can get a dog used to sticking his head in around
food bowls that they're, you know, nervous of. Just go slow with it. Because if you go too fast,
they get too stressed. They don't want to eat. It's gonna kill the food drive. Getting him on the
edge and coming back, coming in, coming back in. That's all good. Just be careful. You'd rather,
I don't want push him past that threshold. Open the restaurant every day.
Make 'em brave, make 'em confident. Make it a little bit exciting.
As always, if you'd like more training and coaching, I have a couple videos on this
page. One is my free video series. You can sign up for. You get six videos. One will
be sent to you every single day for six days. It gives you a pretty good foundation on the
science and nature of how I train. Okay? And you'll learn how to shape behaviors