Cheese Makes Everything Better

Contrary to the title, this post isn't really about cheese; it is about and reducing stress and relationship building. There is a lot of discussion about "emotional eating" for people, usually with the implication that it is bad. But eating really does decrease stress. We can use this with our dogs (and ourselves), the trick is to do it mindfully in a way that really does help with the stress. For myself, that means choosing something I like eating and eating it slowly. My dogs aren't very good at eating slowly. But I can feed them slowly in a calm manner that doesn't work them up. When I notice that they are having a bad day or have had a lot of stress recently, I'll sit down with them in a relaxed manner and just feed them their meal a bit at a time. They don't need to "work for it", they just get it because they need to eat in a low stress way.

What does all this have to do with the title? For Max, his favorite stress eating food is cheese. His life motto seems to be "Cheese Makes Everything Better."

High Value Rewards

When you are training or counter conditioning, you want to reward behaviour you like. All of us, dogs included, value different things differently. If you want to reward someone, knowing what they like is important. Keeping track of what your dog's favorite treats and relative value and passing them out accordingly is important in training and having a good relationship. Being asked to work really hard and then being paid 1 cent is particularly demoralizing if you are regularly paid hundreds of dollars for something easy. Think how you would feel about a friend who kept wanting to go out to dinner somewhere you hated. Providing higher value treats for more difficult work and mixing things up so they stay enjoyable is just good sense when you look at it that way.

Max's current highest value treat is Feline Pill Pockets. He takes 2 pills a day and we use those 2 opportunities for something special - that might be something hard and it might just be taking some time together to enjoy a good treat.

What are your dogs highest value treats?

Rewards - Not Just Something To Eat

We often talk about treats as food rewards, but they don't necessarily have to be. Pico really liked having her special water dish held for her. Having a ball thrown is rewarding for a lot of dogs. Max loves food, but being rubbed behind his ears is also a big treat. Hero loved getting to play with the flirt pole and when he got food, it was even more rewarding if it was given in the Treat and Train (previously known as the Manners Minder) than if he was given food by hand. A lot of dogs really enjoy their tug rope, and you see them used a lot as a reward or to rev up a dog doing dog sports.

Does your dog have a special non-food reward?