[Episode 20]

 

3 Reasons Why Your Dog Isn’t Food Motivated 

 

“My dog isn’t food motivated.”

Most likely, you’ve heard someone say this, or maybe you’ve said this yourself. But is it true? Are dogs that refuse food or a treat not food motivated? 

 

No, the reality is all dogs are food motivated. If your dog isn’t food motivated, then he would die of starvation, right? 

 

Food is a primary reinforcer. That means that dogs, instinctively, want it. No previous experience is needed to be reinforcing. Food is also one of the easiest, most efficient, effective, and quickest ways to train your dog. But why do some dogs refuse treats or food, especially when you’re trying to train them or get them to learn something new?. 

 

The first place you want to start is to notice in which context is your dog eating food and in which context, is he not eating food? Does he eat at home, but not one walk? Will he take a treat on a walk, but not when he sees another dog? If your dog doesn’t eat his breakfast or dinner for 3 days, you wouldn’t say he’s not food motivated, right? You’d think he is sick and take him to the veterinarian. Not eating on a walk or around a dog is similar. 

We’re going to explore three reasons why your dog seems like he’s not food motivated. 

 1. Your dog is too stressed

 

The number one reason why your dog won’t take food in a certain context is due to stress. He’s too stressed to eat.  A healthy dog’s ability and willingness to eat is a great indicator of his emotional state, just like not eating breakfast and dinner for 3 days is an indication of a physical illness. So the ability to eat is a good barometer for how safe your dog feels, if your dog feels threatened, if he feels worried, he’s not going to eat.

 

Stress can inhibit eating. It’s a survival mechanism for dogs. If they feel threatened or worried, they’re going to focus on the threat, not eat a snack. They’re trying to decide if they need to fight or run to get out of danger. 

 

You may say, my dog doesn’t look stressed. But you need to understand how dogs express and communicate stress. Remember, they’re not humans. Dogs don’t speak English. They communicate with their body language. You need to look for signs of stress. These signs could be subtle signs such as a tongue flick, turning their head away, turning body away, tucking the tail. The ability to eat or not eat is an easy way for you to determine if your dog is stressed or not? Fearful or reactive dogs may refuse food because they’re past their threshold of tolerance.

 

Not eating is a sign of stress or over-excitement. 

 

A healthy dog’s ability and willingness to eat is an indicator of his emotional state. With fearful and reactive dogs, refusal of food may be a sign that we’ve crossed a threshold.

2. Not all food is equally reinforcing

 

Not all food is created equal to all dogs. Dogs have preferences for what they like and what they LOVE. In other words, they might like one thing better than the other. They might like ham better than chicken. I like chocolate better than vanilla. You might like vanilla better than chocolate. What is reinforcing is up to the dog. 

 

Everyone has different reinforcers. It’s up to your dog as to what type of food reinforces him more than others. 

 

3. Your Dog Sees Food as a Trap- Overshadowing 

 

The third reason why it might seem like your dog isn’t food motivated is that your dog sees food as a trap. One of the mistakes dog owners make when training their dog is using positive reinforcement wrong.

 

There is a correct and incorrect way to use food just because you’re giving your dog a treat doesn’t mean you’re using positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement means to add something to strengthen or reinforce a behavior. If your dog sees the food as a trap, then you are using the food incorrectly. Another way to use food incorrectly is to use it as a lure or a bribe. That means the food is in your hand. The food should never be in your hand. If your dog can see the food and you’re using the food to lure him, then you’re using food in the wrong way. 

 

If you lure him into the bathtub (which he doesn’t like) with a piece of food, then the next time he takes a bath, he sees you with that piece of food and he runs the other way because last time it was a trap. 

 

If you lure or bribe your dog into doing something that he doesn’t want to do, then it might seem like he isn’t food motivated. 

 

Another way struggling dog owners use food wrong is by letting the fearful situation or object overshadow the food. 

 

This happens  often when people use food incorrectly to counter-condition or desensitize, something that is fearful to the dog. If the fear outweighs the food, then the food won’t be effective. We go over this and help you find the right food in the Barkaholics Program. 

 

The good news is that using food is the most effective and the most humane way to train your dog and teach him how to live in your human worlds. 

 

Check out our 2 amazing online programs, The Dog Academy and Barkaholics Program to get a well behaved dog that listens. 

  

Thank you for reading or listening to The Naughty Dog Podcast.