There are some really important natural training opportunities that you're
probably missing in your puppy's daily schedule and feeding time could be one of
them. In this video.
I'm going to show you four simple exercises that anybody can do with their
puppy.
They're going to help prevent some pretty serious issues with your dog down the
road. For today's video,
we have borrowed the most adorable little demonstration dog, my name's Kayl.
This is eight week old doodle puppy. Max, welcome back to McCann Dogs
I'm gonna start with the very first exercise with max here,
now you can see he's pretty ready for the food already. It's about supper time.
So I'm dealing with the hungry puppy and this is the best time to be practicing
these exercises with your dog.
When your puppy is ready and willing to have the food. Now,
I thought that was cute. Little accidental wave.
Now I really want him to understand that food comes from me.
I want him to learn that.
Listening to me is a lot of fun and that working for food,
is going to bring you a lot of value,
not just about eat the food and I'm going to go and do my own thing.
I want to use this as an opportunity for us to have a little bonding time and
for him to learn that you know, I'm the bearer of good things. Okay pup,
we're going to start with our herd for sexercise.
Now the first thing that I'm going to do is toss a couple of kibbles in this
little bowl here. I'm going to get rid of, so this is his meal here.
I'm just going to put it off to the side and we're going to start here. Now.
I'm just going to start off by showing him the bowl.
And I'm actually going to begin with some hand feeding because I want him to
learn that the food comes from me.
I don't want to just put this magic bowl down and walk away.
I need to bring the value from me.
So I'm just going to start off by doing a bit of hand feeding and then take the
treat from the bowl and bring it right to my puppy.
Now you'll notice that when I'm doing this, max is looking in my direction.
What I don't want to do is be feeding for my puppy.
Just randomly looking somewhere else in the house.
I'm going to draw his focus to me. Oh, good boy. And you can see Max,
I know does not know how to sit yet.
And he literally just came to a home to his family,
but the way that I'm holding the food to serve encourages a little bit more
attention. Good boy. If he's jumping, I got,
I can just use the bit of the food to help him. Yes.
So not only am I bringing value of me delivering the food to him,
I also can start some of his initial training. Good boy. Here. What's this?
Yes. Good boy. So that's step one,
doing a little bit of hand feeding with your puppy from the bowl directly to
their mouth. Oh good boy. Now we're going to take this step one step further.
The reason we're showing you these exercises is because they are fabulous
prevention exercises to make sure that your dog's not going to have issues with
their food bowl,
with people around their food bowl or guarding later in the future.
If you can do these deliberately on a regular basis,
you're going to find that it really helps the dog to understand,
to be very calm and relaxed, confident when you're around their bowl.
And that there's no issues. Now,
if you find that your dog is showing any possessive issues around the bowl,
growling, guarding, anything like that, you know,
coming and finding a solution on YouTube is not what you want to do.
We're very intentional about not showing that type of content on YouTube because
every dog is different. And you know,
it's the type of thing that you need to go and get professional help about
because you want to make sure that you're getting the right information for your
dog and for your situation. So if you find you're getting into issues,
make sure that you are going to deal with that elsewhere. But for now,
these exercises are perfect for prevention.
It's for you to start off before there's an issue.
And to make sure that you continue practicing.
And just because you're not having any issues right now,
it doesn't mean that you should avoid these.
These are something that we do with every single dog on a daily,
weekly basis to make sure that there's just never any problems with pop-up.
So we're going to build on that last exercise.
And we're going to start to hone in on the specific part of the exercise,
where the puppies realize the food is coming from us.
So I'm actually going to look for something a bit more specific for my puppy
this time around now I have my food bowl. I have several little,
the snacks of his dinner in my hand here.
And I'm just going to start off by putting the bowl down. Good boy.
And the throw one little kibble in it. What's in here. What's in this.
What's in here. I'm going to wait for him to look up at me.
Yeah. Good boy.
And then I'm going to drop a couple more kibbles into the bowl and once we play
this game a little bit here. I'm hoping he's going to figure out,
eat some cookies. Look back up at mom. Yes. Good.
And then drop some treats down.
Max has only been wearing a collar for a short period of time,
so you can see that that's pretty distracting for him. Come on bud.
Let's try it again. So we're going to toss a couple of treats in.
I'm going to wait. Yes.
Good boy. I toss a couple of treats in, look, it's in this little bowl.
For you. Wait for him to look up.
Okay.
So I have a puppy that's a little bit disconnected. So what that tells me,
it's not I to stand here for 10 years waiting for him to pay attention.
Oh boy.
I going to make it a little bit easier by coming down more to his head level so
that it's easier for him to focus on me, sir. All right.
I'm gonna try it one more time and just make it a little easier.
Yeah.
I need a little, have a couple other extra steps from there. Now,
when you're working with baby puppies,
you don't want to do the same thing over and over and over again because you run
the risk of the puppy, getting a little bit bored with it.
So you're going to do a little bit at a time.
Once you practice a couple of these exercises,
you can even put the remainder of the treats in,
or they're the kibble in their bowl.
And then you can pop them in their crate to eat the rest,
which is a great way to build value,
but keep these little sessions short and sweet so that the puppy can be very
successful. Now,
the next exercise we're going to do with our little food bowl trading is start
to bring in the big guns. So I have some treats now,
and I still have a bit of his dinner. Now, the steps that I'm going to,
you know exactly where that is. The step that I'm going to implement.
This point is bringing in something higher value.
When I take the bowl away from him,
a lot of dogs are very comfortable in the food's there,
but if we go to take something away,
they can sometimes feel like they need to guard it.
And that's what we're trying to avoid by using these prevention exercises.
Now again, when you're feeding your puppy, when it's breakfast,
when it's dinner time,
this is one of the absolute best times to get your training is because your
puppy is already hungry and they're ready and willing for that food.
And you can use that to teach your puppy,
that you bring good things that listening to you brings the things that they
want, which is the food he says, all right, lady, let's go already.
So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take a couple of his kibbles.
Of his meal. I'm going to put them in this bowl.
And before I put it down for him, I'm going to make it a big deal.
And I'm going to get some higher value traits.
So I have some dried beef lung here,
which smells absolutely disgusting by the way.
So I'm going to put this bull down, I'm gonna let him have it.
And when he's eating,
I'm going to pick it up and I'm going to drop some extra tasty treats in there.
So he learns when somebody takes my bowl,
something better could go in it and I'm going to have it from there,
which means it's a good thing. So I'm going to show him the food.
I'm going to put it down. I didn't take it away. Whoa, what's this?
Woo. I'm gonna make it a big deal. Here's an extra treats in there for you.
There you go. I'll take my hand away.
Let him eat a little bit and I'm going to take it away again. Oh, look at this.
What am I putting in here for guy? Good boy.
Now notice the light happy tones that I'm using with them.
I'm not doing this silent and boring. I'm making it a big deal.
I'm going to take it away again. Oh, what's this? Hey. Ooh.
Look at this guy. Good. Here we go. I got to put it down.
I can try it one more time. Whoa, what's up here. Good. Now notice my,
the most exciting part of this exercise is when I'm taking the bowl,
you may have noticed that when I put the bowl down for him to eat,
I was a little bit more quiet.
I want him to think that it is way more fun to have the bowl taken away from me
than it is for me to just to stand here and eat it. Oh, what's this good boy.
Make sure that when you practice this whatever addition that you're putting into
the bowl, your puppy does find more valuable than their kibble.
It needs to be very exciting that when my hands come in to take the bowl,
I want him basically being like, Ooh, she's going to add something good.
This is going to be great. Yeah, you can have one more little tasty treat.
There you go. Good boy. You can do this, you know, couple of times in a row.
And then again, like I said before, quit while you're ahead to make it easy.
And then you can have some finish the rest of the meal in his crate with the
door shut again, to build that value for the crate as well.
Now that I've worked a little bit on teaching him that the food comes from me
and that it's great thing for me to take things from him.
I'm actually going to add one more element to this exercise.
And that's teaching him about having a bit of self-control.
Now he's a very young puppy. He doesn't have any obedience skills.
He doesn't know how to sit. He doesn't know how to wait.
So I'm actually going to show you an exercise that you can do,
even with a puppy who has skills that can start to implement a bit of self
control work.
So we love to eventually teach our dogs to sit and wait for us to put the food
bowl down and then to release them to it.
And the idea behind that is that we want the dogs to learn,
to show a little bit of self control,
show that we're in control and that we can sort of send them to the food,
tell them when they can eat and then be able to take the food away.
Now this probably doesn't have that skill. He doesn't understand it.
So I'm actually going to just show you a bit of a different version that can
sort of teach him
about how to hold position a little bit before I go to give him the food.
So I'm actually just going to hold the food in the air a little bit and I'm
going to wait for him to be a little common settled. Yes. Good boy.
And then I'm going to let him have the food. So again,
if he's jumping at the bowl, I'm not going to let him have the food.
I'm going to wait for him to be calm. And so there we go.
So I'm going to put some more treats in here, more kibbles in there.
If he goes to it, I'm just going to pull the bowl away. Oops.
Oops.
That's good. Boy. The moment he stops moving towards the food,
I'm going to let him have it. Now he's a baby puppy.
He doesn't have a lot of experience,
so I don't want to make him stand there for too long before I reward them.
I just want to make it really easy for him to be successful.
So let's try that again. See what happens.
Yeah. Wow. We have a very brilliant little puppy on her hands. Good boy.
Very nice. Try it again.
So there's just like two or three little kibbles in here.
I'm not making it too difficult.
He goes to grab his head in the bowl. I'm just going to pull it up.
Oh.
Good boy. Yes.
Get good boy offered a sit without me even asking.
And that's actually the first time he's done that since I've had him in this
little session,
I was trying to lure him with the treat earlier and he wasn't really sure what
to do because he's not really worked on set before. I think it's really cool.
He just offered that. Let's try that again. Young man. That was very good.
Good boy.
Yes.
Good. Wow.
So he's already started to figure out every comment moved towards that bowl.
That bowl disappears.
Every time I show a little bit of self-control I'm allowed to eat some of that
food.
Oops. Yeah.
Good, good.
I don't want to wear out my luck because he is making some amazing choices at
this point.
So from here I will quit while I'm ahead and I'll just let him finish the rest
of the meal in his crate to build that value. But from here,
I could start to build on getting to sit for hold for longer periods of time.
That was a nice thing. And then that way he's going to start to learn,
to have some manners at a time where he's already pretty excited about working
for food as a new puppy owner,
you definitely want to take advantage of those natural learning opportunities
like feeding time,
but there's actually a lot of other times throughout the day that you want to
get little training sessions in as well. Now,
if you want to check out what 24 hours looks like in our house with our puppies,
make sure you check out that video right there.
If you're looking for some guidance from one of our instructors to help you with
your puppy training at home,
make sure you check out our online class called Puppy Essentials.
And the information is in the description below on that note. I'm Kayl.
This is baby Max happy training.