Episode #39 My Picky Puppy

I answer the following questions on today's episode:

• Why do we use food when it comes to dog training?
• What foods do I use with the dogs I train?
• What should I do if my puppy is picky and isn’t motivated by their food?
• What if my puppy gets an upset stomach and has loose stools? 

Note: I am not a veterinarian or dietary expert when it comes to dogs so please first and foremost consult your vet when determining the best diet for your puppy. I’m simply here to offer some tips and advice when it comes to the basics as well as help you see the benefits of using food in training.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

speaker 0:   0:00
This is The Puppy Training Podcast Episode #39: My Picky Puppy. This podcast is designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is The Puppy Training Podcast, and I'm your host. Amy Jensen.  

speaker 0:   0:26
Hey, everyone, how's it going? I haven't given you an update on Boots in a while. He's our service dog in training, and I thought maybe I'd do that today. He's eight months currently, he knows almost all of his cues, which is around 40, so that's pretty impressive. We're still working on things like 'get-your-leash' and 'fix', but other than that, we're pretty much strengthening the stays and lengthening the behaviors like 'go-to-bed', 'wait', 'go-in', those kinds of things as well as getting to do them in public. Puppies don't generalize. We train them here at home and around as we go places, so getting him to do all of these behaviors while he's out and about it's important. That's kind of where we're at right now, working on getting the same results that I'm getting in my house out of a house and then for other people as well, getting him to listen and take cues from other people. He does have some favorites, most puppies do. His favorites are, 'jump-on', 'turn', he loves to spin in circles, he loves 'find'. He loves finding Emma in my house, and then 'load-up'. This dog will run to the passenger side of my car when we are in the garage and just sit there and wait because he wants to come with us, which I love. I love that he loves to come and be with us, he likes to go out and about. That's one of the qualities that will make him a wonderful service dog is just simply because he wants to go where we go, so that's awesome. He learned a few tricks this week. One of them was 'sit-pretty', and it's pretty cute to watch. He can now balance for about five seconds. That's a trick that you teach your puppy, it's literally you're rewarding a split second of a paw-Iift, and then you build it to the point where they can balance, and he's figured out the balancing act now. We're about to five seconds that he'll just sit there and balance for a reward, which is pretty fun. He's just a really great overall dog. We have thoroughly enjoyed having him in our home. We're so thankful to Jen Carlson at Bunji Doodles for the good work that she did and prepping him for us. We get to have him for another year most likely. It takes about that long to train a service dog, and we'll look to hopefully graduate him in February. Fingers crossed. 

speaker 0:   2:36
Today I want to talk a little bit about food. Why do we use food when it comes to dog training? What foods do I use with the dogs that I train? What should I do if my puppy's picky and isn't motivated by their food? What if my puppy gets an upset stomach or has loose stools? Those are the questions that I want to cover on the podcast today. I do want to make a note that I am not a veterinarian or a dietary expert when it comes to dogs, so please first and foremost consult your vet when determining the best diet for your puppy, but today I'm gonna simply offer you some tips and advice when it comes to the basics, as well as help you see some of the benefits of using food and training. Let's go to that first question: why do I use food when training dogs? My training philosophy is based on several things, but one of them's Lima. Using the least intrusive, minimally aversive methods possible in order to get my dogs to perform a training objective and the positive rewards-based trainer. I also believe in boundaries and very clear expectations. I have a yes marker and a no marker, so I do tell my dogs when I don't like something they're doing, but I always like to start with that least intrusive, minimally aversive method, which is positive reinforcement. Things that get my dog to want to work and want to train are things that motivate him, and when you look at a dog and things that motivate him to do something, food is pretty close to the top of the list, if not the top of the list. It does vary dog to dog, but food is a great motivator, and that's why I use it in training. I can get my dog to do a lot of things willingly. He chooses to do that for that reward that he knows it's coming. Reward-based training also fosters a healthy relationship between me and my dogs. I love to train. They love to train. You can see it in their face. You can see in their body language that they're excited to go to work and to do things that I asked them to do. For me, food is a great way to have a healthy all-around wonderful experience in dog training.  

speaker 0:   4:37
What foods do I use? I use a variety. First of all, I like to lose the food bowl. This is an opportunity every day, twice a day or three times a day, depending on how many meals your puppy's getting, where I can just use that as motivation to do things that I want my puppy to learn. I like to measure out our daily meal and put it in a bag or in a training pouch, I put it around my home in little jars and then think how many 'sits-to-say-please', downs, stays, touches, turns, et cetera that you could get your dog to happily offer just by giving them their meal. My dog sits at my feet like a 'sit-to-say-please', here's some kibble. If my dog will go lie down on his mat, here's some kibble. My puppy goes in his crate on his own, here's some kibble. I'm always watching for things throughout the day that I like my puppy to do and if he will offer them to me on his own by his own choice, absolutely, here's some kibble. If you have a brand new puppy, try it. Try losing the food bowl and just feed them throughout the day for good things that you see them doing. Whatever kind of diet your dog is on, this method works really well, so give it a try. Another tip on that point is I also like to put their food and puzzle toys. Let's say that we've done some training and they have earned some of their kibble and I have some leftover. I might put some of that in a puzzle toy that gives them some good mental enrichment. Maybe it last 15-20 minutes. That's a good mental exercise that my puppy can go to that Kong Wobbler or other puzzle toy where you could just put the food inside, set it on the floor, and then they have to really work and move that toy around to get that food to come out on the floor so they can eat it. That's a great way to spend some of your puppy's energy, and also give him something to do, gives him purpose, and it gives him something to focus on besides being naughty in your house. Absolutely using their meals to both train and give them some mental exercise is a great idea.  

speaker 0:   6:38
When I need something higher value. Let's say my puppy's kibble is not gonna cut it. Can you guys all think of it a time when that might not work? I'm thinking outside. Your puppy goes outside, they see a bird, they see a cat, they can smell the deer that were in your yard last night, I mean, we're talking distractions, and with those distractions that are super tempting, we have to counterbalance that and really come out with some good motivation to get our puppy to want to focus on us and not all of the new novel smells that he's checking out outside. Whenever I need something higher value, I go to things like a natural balance dog food roll or Red Barn is another great brand. I always buy the beef flavor if you're going to do a dog food role simply because it cuts up better. I find the other flavors are a bit too mushy, but every morning I like to cut off 3 to 4 thin slices. A slice is the width of my pinky fingernail, and I dice about six cuts horizontally and six cuts vertically, and then I place those bits in my fridge in a container, and I do that every morning and then I'll have easy access to those rewards throughout the day whenever I need them. Meal mixers or another great one that I find most puppies absolutely go nuts for. Freeze-dried chicken, turkey, they have some other flavors as well but freeze-dried liver, the beef liver also works. Those are what I consider high value. Most puppies that I train, and I train a lot of puppies, will go nuts for those items. The natural balance dog food roll or Red Barn dog food roll, meal mixers, freeze-dried liver, those are things that I save for times when I know I need to capture my puppy's attention, and it's going to be harder to do that. These are not things that I'm giving inside my home for a sit or a down. I try to use their dog food for things like that that are what I call inexpensive behaviors. They're pretty simple for my puppy to offer. I give them a simple treat. If it's a harder behavior, maybe a 'come' out in the yard, I'm calling them from 50 feet away off of something that they're super interested in, that's what I'm pulling out these higher-value rewards. Another trick that I like to do and super simple, fairly cheap, I like to go get a cheap roast from the grocery store, put it in a crockpot, cook it, and then dice it up into seven baggies and throw them in the freezer. Then once a day, I'm just pulling out a bag into my fridge so that I just have something super high value that my puppy doesn't normally get for occasions when I need a training session to go well. An example of this might be when the doorbell rings and some new people arrive in your house. That's fairly exciting to puppies, they sometimes go nuts for that. I know some of you can relate. If you have a dog that goes crazy about the doorbell or when guests arrive, that might be something that you pull out and work a training session on getting your puppy to focus on you, not who's at the door simply by using food that's higher-value than they're used to getting.

speaker 0:   9:25
Speaking of high value, when a new puppy comes, one of the first things on my to-do list is to make a list or a hierarchy of things that motivate my puppy. I don't want to overwhelm my new puppy with brand new foods all at once. It does take about a month or so to develop this list, but I do make a point to write down the things that my puppy is willing to work for, and I'll start with the least high value, which is usually the kibble. The kibble's kind of the bottom of the line. My puppy will work for it for some things and in some circumstances but not all circumstances, and then usually it's something like a Cheerio or a cheese cracker, something small but a little higher value than the kibble. Some puppies love vegetables, some puppies love fruits, so you just have to kind of try it out with your dog. Remember, your puppy's gonna be in a transition phase when they first leave the breeder and come to your home, so you want to give them some time to really settle in and relax in their new environment before you really make a definitive list because you're going to see a different puppy, possibly in a week or so when he finally relaxes or he's a little less stressed. Put this on your to do is to make a hierarchy of rewards for your dog. Try to outline it such that my puppy might do these things for this treat or reward, but it's gonna have to be a little higher value and what does that mean, what does that look like, what food item is that, going on up the ladder to that roast beef that we're pulling out of our freezer once a day. With the food, feel free by all means to add to that list. Sometimes I'll even make two separate lists and just keep them side by side, but your puppy also might be super motivated for nonfood items. Absolutely. Belly rubs, ear rubs, attention, tossing them a toy, things like that that are just more of a life reward, they're just naturally there, even just praise saying, good dog or good puppy, or good boy, good girl, those kinds of things. Whatever your puppy gravitates toward and just absolutely loves, that's what we want to be aware of. We really wanna learn that the first week or so or even first month that our puppy's home so that we have a bag of tools, essentially, that we can pull out at any given moment to reward good behavior and to really help our puppy be motivated to give us the behavior that we're asking for. An example of that would be, my puppy will do a sit for his kibble. I absolutely use kibble, but let's say I'm trying to teach him how to do a 'down-stay', or a 'go-to-bed' behavior where he goes to his mat and, lies down and stays there until released, that's a more expensive behavior, and he might not be willing to stay very long for a piece of kibble. The other thing about that is if he always knows what's coming next, let's say he's in a stay or go to bed and you're always dropping a piece of dog food, he might give up the game sooner than you want him to, simply because he knows it's just gonna be another piece of kibble. Along these lines of having a hierarchy of things that my dog will or won't work for and a different value associated with it, I also like to sometimes just make a mix. He might get a piece of kibble, he might get a little cracker or a Cheerio, he might get a piece of apple, or he might get a piece of carrot, he might get a piece of cheese, or he might get a piece of freeze-dried liver, he doesn't know, and that will drive him to want to play the game longer. The behavior such as 'wait' or 'stay', or any of those impulse control behaviors, you can get more time out of your puppy simply by keeping the game exciting and making it a game that he doesn't quite know when or what's coming next. Go ahead and mix up those food items as well, but having that list is really helpful to me to see, 'oh yeah, I'm gonna be going outside, there's gonna be other dogs present, here's going to be birds present, I'm going to really have to go to cheese today, or I'm gonna have to go to that roast beef today', and having those tools available to me will help me get the success that I'm wanting with my puppy.  

speaker 0:   13:28
As I mentioned, puppies are motivated by other things besides food, so the toys, the praise, the belly rubs, attention, and life rewards are awesome. Use them as much as possible. This is a topic for another day, probably, but if you're worried about the use of food in training, which I know sometimes comes up, we definitely add in reinforcement schedules and life rewards to ensure that our puppies are not food dependent. This also has a lot to do with the timing of the reward, which we talked about a few weeks ago on this podcast, but that is a key point to get right in effective training. We do want to make sure that we're moving from luring with food to simply rewarding or paying with food. That is a critical difference that needs to be noted, but we'll talk about that on a later day. I wanted to mention that a little bit because sometimes there is this nervousness or anxiousness when we say I'm going to train my puppy with food. Food is simply a motivator, and our puppies must be motivated to learn. It's a great strategy to employ and to use to get great behavior with a dog who's happy to work and happy to train. I, by all means, recommend the use of food and training. Just make sure we're doing it correctly.  With your dog, make a list this week. What motivates them to want to work? Let me know what your dog loves. I'd love to hear. I'm always open to new ideas and my puppies are always looking for new ideas.

speaker 0:   14:40
What should I do if my puppy's picky and isn't motivated by their food? I have cases like that as well that I hear about so I get asked this every so often, and it's interesting because some people have the issue that their dog eats their food so quickly, we encourage the use of a puzzle bowl to slow them down, simply because it's dangerous if they inhale their food too quickly, while others will tell me my puppy will take a bite or two of the food, but then they'll ignore it. They'll eat it later in the day when they want to. I know puppies are all unique and different. This reminds me of a story. I was training a puppy this past year named Remy, and I was having the hardest time finding something she would really work for. We were okay with the simple stuff, but when we moved outside to leash walking, it was super hard to keep her attention and everything I tried just wasn't working. I needed something for leash walks outside and like I said, those dog food rolls, things that I had tried, most puppies go bananas for them, but Remy was just not interested. As a trainer, I set up weekly playdates with clients who have puppies in my area and one week a lady and her cute mini golden doodle walked in. Remi walked right up to the lady, sat down and stared at her. She's in a room full of energetic puppies, and she's offering this lady, a 'sit-to-say-please'. Immediately I asked Jennie, what do you have? It was a meal mixer, chicken flavor and sweet little Remi wanted one, so I got some for us to use in training, and it was a game-changer, a simple fix. Training from then on was really a breeze. If you haven't found what motivates your dog yet, try something new. Remember, life rewards are good, too. Sometimes it might be a squeaky toy, a ball, a Frisbee, bumpers, whatever works well in capturing your puppy's attention, and it's also important to realize that it's something that works for them. Even if we think it's gonna be fun or we think it's gonna be delicious, it's really up to our puppy. What motivates your puppy? I also want you to be careful not to get into the food traps. With picky puppies, sometimes we get into this food trap or game where our puppy isn't loving his current food, but he's a healthy weight, he has good stools and the vet approves of his diet. I really suggest sticking with the food he's on. If you switch, most likely, your puppy will love the new food for 1 to 2 weeks, but then they'll go back to that same behavior of not loving it, hoping that you'll switch again and this game continues. You're always trying to find the next best food, and it's just never going to be good enough for your puppy, so just a little tip. Avoid this game. Some puppies will play this. Stand strong, they will eat. If they're hungry, they will eat. If you need to, step back with the training rewards for a few days. Just use kibble until they start eating their food again and then you can reintroduce some of the food because I know that happens when we are using these yummy rewards, these high-value things, some of our puppies will just hold out and wait for those and not eat as much of their dog food, so do pay attention to your puppy's diet and how he's doing with his food. If you need to, use the kibble more for training, absolutely ditch that food bowl if you need to. I suggest everybody try it. It's a great exercise, but then also maybe scale back on the amount of treats you're giving and rewards you're giving that aren't his food. Again, every little food reward that I feed, it's small. It's a small little tidbit of food, it's usually the size of my pinky fingernail which is about the size of a pea. That's what they're getting for each little behavior, so keep it small so they don't fill up too quickly. That way you can maximize your training sessions as well. 

speaker 0:   18:11
What if my puppy gets an upset stomach and has loose stools or even bloody stools? Here's what I do. If my puppies having a rough go, so are puppies are constantly mouthing things, they're getting things from outside, inside, things off the floor, and occasionally things will just upset their system. I like to stop feeding my puppies a regular diet for a day or two. Instead, I'll feed him plain rice with boiled chicken, and I'll add about a tablespoon of pure pumpkin puree which has really good fiber in it, and I'll feed that to my puppy until his stool has returned to normal, which is usually within a day or two. If your puppy is still not feeling well, definitely consult your veterinarian. It might be something that he will need some vet help getting rid of that. Make sure that for the first few days change his diet. Go to a rice-based diet with some boiled chicken and pumpkin puree, and then just watch him. Make sure he's getting plenty of access to fresh drinking water, we don't want him to get dehydrated. It's also important that when our puppies aren't feeling well and they're having kind of a sick day that we clear up their medical needs first before we focus on training. If your puppy isn't feeling well, let's turn the focus to getting him better and take a day off is needed with that training until he is feeling back to his normal self again. You can usually tell by their energy levels and their reactions how they're feeling. Hopefully, your puppy has great energy and he's playful and he's energetic, he just has some loose stools. Then there's not too much cause for concern there. I would just change his diet a little bit put some rice and chicken, a little bit of pumpkin and see if he can get back to his regular stools. Now there is something called food sensitivities, and you might have a puppy with chronic diarrhea. If you're having diarrhea, your puppy is having loose stools for a significant amount of time, after that day or two, definitely consult your veterinarian. If it's not going back to normal, there could be something like a chicken allergy or some kind of sensitivity that's upsetting his diet, and you might need to revamp what food you're giving him. But again, that's a question for a veterinarian and you can tell in these training sessions if they don't feel well, they have a hard time focusing and they have a hard time doing what we're asking them to do, so give them some time off until they're back to their normal selves and then go for it.  

speaker 0:   20:31
That's food in a nutshell, you guys, I hope that was some helpful tips and tricks for you. As far as diet goes again, food is super motivating for puppies. It gets them to do a lot of behaviors that we like. I know when puppies come, they're very mouthy, they're jumpy, just using food and getting them to focus on what you have in your hand gets them to do lots of behaviors. We can teach them patience. We can teach them impulse control. We can teach them to sit instead of jump all over us. We can teach them to leave their leash alone as we walk outside so they're not biting and jumping at the leash while we're just simply trying to move, it's very helpful. Find something that your puppy is motivated by. You might have to try a whole list of different things. Make that hierarchy list so that you know what you're gonna need when you're outside or when you're faced with other dogs or guests in your home versus what you're gonna need for a simple thing like sit. You have a wonderful week, happy training, and I'll talk to you next week. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training question, visit my site BaxterandBella.com to contact me.