The Power of Food.
It just amazes me that everytime I go out to do something with dogs a big question and answer session happens inside my head. Sometimes I can find the answer, sometimes I have to dig deep and watch the dogs for a lot longer until they answer the question for me.
I have just finished reading in the latest N.Z Listener, an article about Sir Ray Avery, one of our greatest Kiwi Entrepreneurs. He had this to say: 'My biggest advantage over others was that as a child I had glue ear, was shortsighted and dyslexic'. To learn he had to pay close attention to what was going on around him. He remains convinced that the key to innovation is observation. I can definitely aline with this as a very deaf child my concentration on people's faces and lips to tell me what was going on was intense. If the person had their back to me then I had to read the body language to find out what was going on. Most people find it hard to believe how deaf I am because I seem to keep pace quite well. Although there have been times of monumental cock-ups and mis-cues on occasion but mostly I stayed in one place until I 'got it'. This has been the main driver in my dog training programs. I want the dogs to tell me what the heck is going on in their lives, why they are not relating to their owner/handler. I want them to tell me what they want to do and why. Then I have to convince them that my way is better for us both.
As usual, I have digressed. I often go into homes where the dogs are not very attentive. Not interested, not interacting. If I glance around the house and/or garden I will usually find there is a stash of readily available food for them to help themselves to. This takes away any need to interact with other members of the clan, human or other animal, and the fully sated animal will often secrete himself away and snooze all day, come out and graze some more and then go back to his house and snooze again. This is a very unhealthy way for a dog to live. Why? because he is not exercising his body or his mind. A lot of mental energy goes into figuring a way to get your owner to give you a tasty morsel or to remind them it is dinner time. Feeling hungry is a natural animal desire which aids communication and is the centre of social life for all land dwelling mammals. Dogs who graze at a food bowl are in effect inert beings. Now there is one time in the life of dog that it is quite good to be able to allow them access to food. When they are between the ages of 12 weeks and 24weeks and all that growing is going on and you as a human being are busy and working and so on, having a safe source of food and water that your puppy can choose to have is quite a good idea. I don't do it because I use meal times to reinforce my parenting of the young animal. I hand feed from his bowl all four meals a day, but this takes some committment. I would also worry that the dog might accidentally choke on the food, but then again he could chew on the corner of his blanket and get that stuck in his throat as well, so I figure leaving some food down during this huge growth spurt is not going to do much harm.
One of the ladies who comes to class with her miniature crossbreed told me - he doesn't like me, he never comes and spends time with me , he is always in his kennel. When we discussed his grazing lifestyle she could not equate that with his lack of care for what is going on around him. This dog is not overweight, in fact she tells me he doesn't eat much at a time, but he doesn't need to, he just tops up when he wants to and he is food satisfied. Shame though, there are just the two of them in the household and they are both lonely. She feels he would be deprived if he couldn't help himself to food when he wanted it. mmm that is not what dog is telling me - he looks totally miserable now, couldn't feel less loved I would say.
Yesterday a friend called by so we could discuss her dog's training program for the summer. She told me she had run out of bones and couldn't source any and as she works way out of town and leaves before the shops open and gets home when they are shut, ie. regular butchers etc, then she was concerned that she would not have any bones for the whole week. So I offered to go purchase her some today in my rounds of the town. She was most grateful. So I got the bones and left them at her house in the shed freezer. I decided that I would give the dog a bone as she had smelt them coming through the gate. So I chose one that would be least likely to get stuck between her teeth or have bits break off and cause trouble and offered it. This dog is quite well covered and has a lovely shiny coat. She really is a picture of good health, if not just a little chubby. The bone I offered was fresh, meaty and even I could have been tempted to have a gnaw(joke) but it would have been a really suitable soup bone, she turned me down. It dropped to the ground and lay there as she gazed mournfully at it. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen. This dog has a pet chicken, full sized supposed to lay hen, the chook was pecking away merrily at the fatty bits of meat and the dog watched on. You might say that, as I am not this dog's primary handler, she was confused about accepting a bone from me. Yes, except for the last 18months I have been her trainer during the day, up to three days a week, due to the huge workload her owner has in her profession. Her training has been treat food oriented for a good bit of that time. My take is that she was just too full to fit another thing in at that moment. She had either broken into her biscuit supply again or breakfast was so substantial that she felt like she had eaten two Christmas dinners and couldn't put another thing down.
This behavior is unheard of in my doggy family. The dogs get a bone at about 4p.m. if we are home and not out at evening agility training . They all go for it. I have to slow them down so that chaos doesn't break out. When they are finally allowed, they take their bones and off into their favourite bone chewing spots. One on the front lawn, one on the side lawn, one in the back porch and one in the garage. They will not surface for about an hour or more. Meaty bones are a major part of the food I give my dogs. This is it. Later on in the evening I will throw a handful of kibble out on the concrete and they pick up their share. My dogs are looking to me for the stuff they get. They understand that I am the provider and they come when I call. They are known to sit and look wistfully at me eating something and sometimes I will share a bit and other times I don't. They all have access to fruit and vegetables, and they take advantage of that and pick up the windfall apples and kiwifruit and little Fae will climb into the grape vine and eat ripe grapes. There is plenty of long grass of the sort dogs really love, and they do eat dandelion and shepherds purse and cleavers of their own free will. When we go to feed the donkey in the mornings they will wait to see if he accidentally drops a bit of carrot out of his mouth. It happens some times and they wait each morning for a tasty bit of half chewed carrot. They also have total access to donkey dung, goat dung, cattle dung. But Rabbit dung is really the thing apparently. I also have to say that they do take a bit of a swipe at the dung early in life but they get over it. As pups they seem to indulge more in dung than as adults. So it is not as though they don't have access to food sources of sorts. Obviously the food I provide has a greater pulling power than most dung, vegetation and resurrected part rabbit. I think this is as it should be. I use treat food at the beginning of my puppy training and then I try to drop it as it is counterproductive to teaching a dog the game of work you want to train it to do. I will use food as a comfort if the dog is really miserable.
From my early hand feeding efforts with my new dog or pup, my dogs believe that my hands produce these wonderful tasty things and if they stick around I will share it with them. That is what I want.
So when I excitedly provide food to a dog and it looks at me as if it has no understanding that I am the provider, I am sad. A special part of the bond between the dog and the handler is that the dog is reliant and happy and gleeful and watchful for what it's special person is going to do next. What's the next game, what work are we doing today, wow a bone, can I come in the truck today can I can I? That interaction is reliant on the early food training, kind hand, training, and general attitude of team work together that I want to forge with a dog. Any dog, not just my dog. If I am going to help to train a dog then it is important to me that some bond is there with the team I am working with.
If I get a team to work with where the handler is disinterested in the dog, or the dog is disinterested in the handler, or worse, both, then we have to go back a long way to bring the working bond into play. Sometimes it takes a very long time. Other times, both partners, 'get it', pretty much straight away. Sometimes it is a matter of normalising the behavior of both handler and dog in a public place, or in front of others, as there is a reticence to let on about the games they play together at home, or the way they talk to each other at home. The handler generally feels 'silly' saying 'lets play cuddly bear' or wrestling with a toy with their dog in class. Consequently the dog feels something is wrong and tenses up and becomes stressed.
And finally some people are very guarded about what they feed their dog, when they feed their dog, how they feed their dog, how much, how often, etc. There is obviously not much thought going into the special food time sharing thing. Or if there is they don't want to talk about it. Often the person who brings the dog to class is not the person who feeds the dog either, so there are a lot of issues around food provision that have been totally neglected.
Some people will say, 'doesn't matter'. Well I challenge them to change some things and see what develops. Take away the 'self help' food supply. Change the diet from kibble to raw, or the other way round. Feed a little bit of leftover table scraps - not chop or chicken bones. Hand feed a little bit and then tell me that your dog isn't paying you full attention. I will bet there will be a change in attitude for the better every single time. Just at least think about it.
Raewyn Saville 1 October 2012.
