Ditching the food bowl: What it means and Why

In dog training, you will often hear about hand-feeding. Hand-feeding is a powerful way to build a bond with your dog and make yourself a super-asset to your dog.

The problem with hand-feeding is it’s often not properly explained to an owner. Hand-feeding small pieces of dog food to your dog sounds daunting, honestly, but the idea of hand-feeding is much more than simply handing food to your dog. It’s about turning your dog’s daily food into fun.

I’ve been training dogs professionally for roughly 15 years, and I can’t count how many times I’ve heard owners talk about how their dog isn’t that into food and couldn’t care less about their meals. I’ve never quite understood it myself.

I’ve always had large “lazy” dogs who LIVED for their meals and didn’t waste a moment. My female Mastiff used to do what we called the “Gorilla Goat Dance” — she looks like a gorilla and would bounce like a baby goat when she saw her food dish, which was rather amusing — and my Husky mix would prance in happy circles and bark happily as we got the food ready. So not wanting their food baffled me.

As years went on and my kids grew up, I started diving deeper into my education and knowledge in the world of dog training. One of the subjects I found fascinating was Canine Enrichment, and I’ve sworn by it. So much so, I can count on one hand how many times Linc, the newest dog in my life, has eaten from a regular food dish.

Then I discovered hand-feeding and concept training (game-based training). This threw me for a loop, and I was hooked. I jumped fully into it all, took as many courses through the group that got me hooked as I could afford. A phrase you hear in that group and likely from me at some point is “Ditch the Food Bowl.” So what exactly does it mean?

Imagine a dog in nature: Is their food served in a bowl? Of Course, not. Whether it’s a wolf, feral dog, or simply a stray or lost dog, they have for hunt, forage, and work for their food.

Finding food is a lot of work for them and sometimes hard to come by. So, when they find something, they are eager to eat it because they had to work to get it, therefore the value is higher.

So, our pet dogs who have their food served to them daily in a dish see no real value in their food. It took nothing for them to get it, it held no experience and is readily available — typically at the exact same times daily as well. Therefore, the excitement or value isn’t there, often leading to a dog who isn’t very interested in eating.

There are so many easy ways to ditch the bowl and turn your dog’s meals into a fun experience. The first thing is hand-feeding.

As I said, this isn’t simply handing your dog pieces of kibble for your entire meal. There are hundreds of simple ways to animate your dog’s meals and turn mealtime into a fun learning experience.

The most fun, of course, are the games I’ve likely shown or spoke of in lessons.  Every game has a purpose, whether it’s for recall, proximity, loose leash walking, heeling, reactivity, distraction, boundary practice, or calm.

These games center around making you the coolest thing around them. Because you have taken that food and turned it into an excited animated experience thus creating a tremendous bond between you and your dog. Best part is all the games should stick to 3 minutes each max and move on.

Another simple way is to put away your dog treats, use your dogs kibble as rewards for training. This has so many benefits.

The largest benefit is you are setting your dog’s pay grade way, way lower than some crazy-high-value treat. Not that high-value treats are bad, but what happens when you’ve been training with high-value treats from day one and suddenly find yourself in a situation that has your dog’s arousal level up so high and they have zero interest in what’s typically their favorite treat. That stems from their pay grade being way higher than what is being expected of them.

If you set you pay grade lower, when you need something higher value its achievable and easier to bring your dog’s arousal level back down and manage the situation accordingly.

So, all of this works great but what if your dog is larger and eats 2-3 – cups or more in the case of my mastiffs — or you don’t have the time or desire in a particular day to commit to a game or training session? I get it. It happens to me more than I would care to admit. Just because I’m a professional trainer doesn’t mean I don’t have days where I’m just not feeling it.

Those are days, you likely shouldn’t anyways, as it doesn’t make for a good experience for your dog. In these cases, there are so many options available for enrichment feeding, visit my blog on Canine enrichment to read that post.

Some examples are puzzle feeder games, food balls, snuffle matts, scatter feeding, stuffing toys such as Kong’s and many more, lick mats, maze bowls, food games, toys, and so many more. You can also incorporate simple things around your home you would never think of to use.

Another issue you may have is feeding a raw diet.  Get a treat dispenser, squeeze tubes, cut your meat into smaller chunks, scoop minced food onto a spoon and feed from that, or roll them into meatball or mold and freeze. Lick Mats & Kong’s are also excellent for raw diets.

When you choose to ditch the bowl you are choosing to enrich your dog’s life and strengthen the bond you two have in so many ways. You are building the value in being beside you and enriching the feeding experience no matter which method you use at which time.

The best part is there is no real wrong way to do it, any enrichment to a dog’s life is so incredibly valuable to them. They are only with us for a short period of time, so we owe it to them to make that time the best we possibly can.

I used to live by the motto, a tired dog is a happy dog. To some degree, that’s true, but my motto is now a calm dog is a happy dog.

A dog who gets proper physical and mental stimulation is proven time and time again to have fewer undesirable behaviors and be a calmer happier dog.