How To Train a Dog That’s Isn’t Food Motivated: 5 Strategies To Build Drive and Motivation
Learning how to train a dog that isn’t food motivated can be tough, but it’s not impossible. Along with increasing food drive, you can use other methods of reinforcement to keep your dog engaged. In this post, you’ll discover five effective strategies for motivating a dog that isn’t food driven, including alternative rewards, using daily food, and increasing engagement through play and praise. Turn challenging training sessions into rewarding experiences for both you and your dog.
When it comes to teaching and training dogs you need some form of reinforcement that motivates your dog enough to want to participate. Most dogs will attempt triple backflips for a treat making them the perfect candidates for teaching, but what about those that aren’t that motivated?
For those wondering how to train a dog that isn’t food motivated there are alternatives that you can use. This isn’t an uncommon issue and thankfully there are strategies you can go through that can help rebuild that food drive or utilise another form of reinforcement.
How To Train a Dog That Isn’t Food Motivated – 5 Strategies For Motivation
#1 – Use Daily Food To Train
A lot of owners who struggle with this issue actually are “spoiling” the appetite of the dog. By this I mean they may free-feed the dog through leaving a bowl out all day or by overloading on treats throughout the day.
Dogs that have constant access to food start to lose the value in it, it’s common to see dogs that are free-fed becoming more picky and stopping eating food due to it just losing value.
An option to try is using your dogs daily food for training sessions. “Ditching the bowl” (as it’s referred to) is the ritual of ditching your dog’s food bowl and hand feeding to start building that drive and engagement.
You can split it into the normal ritual of breakfast and dinner or you can spread small portions throughout the day for multiple sessions.
It is understandable that some owners don’t like playing with their dogs’ food and if so take a look at the next few strategies.
#2 – Utilise High Value Rewards
An issue some owners face when it comes to training a dog that isn’t food motivated is that they aren’t using food that is motivating enough.
When starting with obedience and engagement you want to give your dog a reason to work with you. If you really want to know how to train a dog that isn’t food motivated and build that drive and motivation you need to have….leverage.
Sometimes the basic dog treats and kibble won’t be enough to keep your dog engaged especially when it comes to distracting environments or dealing with triggers. For this reason you need a secret weapon in the form of a high value reward.
Our dogs decide what a high value reward really is, sometimes what we are offering just isn’t enough. High value foods are foods that your dog would lose their mind for. I’m talking chicken, steak, cheese, hot dogs, peanut butter, dried liver and treats etc. I have a bag of chopped hot dogs and cheese when training Jasper which I refer to as his trail mix!
Make sure that you are balancing your dog’s food intake with what you give for training to avoid overfeeding and potential weight issues.
In closing I’d quickly like to acknowledge that I do understand that feeding high value treats all the time seems like “bribery” but you are using this for the initial teaching, from there you can reduce the rate or value of reinforcement once your dog has learned the required behaviour and then use high value rewards for jackpot scenarios.
#3 – Make Food Exciting Through Movement
Sometimes your delivery of reward isn’t motivating enough for your dog. One way to deal with this is to become more engaging when delivering the reward.
By becoming exciting and engaging at the point of reinforcement you can activate your dog to do the same. By doing this especially when charging your markers, you can develop that dopamine burst your dog will get from those reinforcement events.
A simple way to do this is to stimulate the prey drive with treat chasing. Ask your dog a behaviour and when they do it, mark the behaviour and take a big step back with the treat in your hand and let your dog chase it, releasing when they catch up.
You can start adding more movement including twist and turns to extend the game and also keep the dog engaged in the activity and training that brings on this game (this is the premack principle for anyone interested, Susan Garrett has a podcast episode that goes into this which is really interesting).
#4 – Find Alternative Rewards
If you really are struggling with using food as a reward there are other factors that you can use for your training sessions instead.
The most popular is play. You’ll find higher drive dogs are more reinforced by play which could be the use of a tug toy, ball on a rope, or even a game of targeting. If you have a dog that likes to play this is a great method for reinforcement.
Some dogs can be motivated by praise and affection. These dogs usually have an incredible bond with their owners and love to work and engage with them. This is also a great option for older dogs or dogs that get too “crazy” when it comes to food or play rewards.
Finally you can also use the environment when it comes down to reinforcement. If you’re trying to teach a dog to be calmer when greeting people and to sit before greeting, then the reward for that dog is the interaction. We can ask the dog to sit and not allow interaction until the desired behaviour. Over time the dog learns if I want that interaction I must sit.
The only issue about alternative rewards is that they are harder when it comes to teaching an initial behaviour. Using luring or free shaping are the main techniques for teaching yet they are vastly easier to teach via food.
Building Engagement Through Play
For dogs that aren’t food motivated, play and bonding can become powerful tools for building engagement and focus during training. Many dogs thrive on interactive play, whether it’s a game of tug, fetch, or a simple chase around the garden. By using play as a reward, you not only reinforce desired behaviours, but you also strengthen your bond with your dog.
Play-based rewards can be especially beneficial for dogs that prefer physical activity over food. Incorporating short bursts of play between training exercises can help maintain your dog’s attention, while also giving them a mental break before returning to the task.
#5 – How To Train A Dog That Isn’t Food Motivated Outside – Implications of Stress
I feel a segment of readers here have a dog that is food motivated inside but then outside and in more distracting and stressful areas this goes out the window (prime example here would be reactive dogs).
This isn’t a strategy but more a reminder that if a dog doesn’t take a treat in certain situations it means they are too stimulated or stressed out.
If you have a dog that struggles with food motivation outside then one option is to increase the value of reward as mentioned above, OR reduce the stress of the environment. If your dog won’t take treats when they see a dog it’s more than likely you’re dog has hit a level of arousal that some treats can’t even break through.
Figure out what could be causing stress and overarousal in your dog and create distance between these triggers. Sometimes dogs that purely just get overstimulated on walks and don’t take treats require boundaries such as a structured walk to reduce that frantic behaviour and allow them to lock into the walk more.
Final Thoughts
Food is the easiest thing to use when teaching behaviours in dogs especially for the average dog owner. Using the above information you should understand how you can rebuild that food drive and the implications or environmental factors and distractions in training.
