Dog doesn't respond to food rewards

[LLYLE]

My 6 month old Lakeland Terrier is not motivated by food at all including 'high value' treats. She seems to only eat enough to keep her growing and will at times refuse chicken, sausage and hotdog. When she does eat these things she will eat a couple and then lose interest. She does like cheese and I use small pieces for training her at home but once she is on a walk she has no interest and when I 'insist' on rewarding her, she will literally spit them out. She is more interested in playing and loves tug of war and football but I struggle to find ways to integrate this when training her walk to heel. Any advice please?

[Adrienne]

Hi there!

Welcome to the forums! 

Anytime a dog owner tells me their dogs eat 'barely enough" or "only enough to keep growing, I can't help but feel a sense of concern. Of course, it's true that there are many finicky dogs out there,  but I worked as a veterinary assistant a while back and many times dogs who were described as finicky or picky eaters, after in-depth exams, were found to have some underlying medical issues. Not always serious things, many times tummy troubles or oral pain and sometimes emotional issues. 

 Of course, take my words with a grain of salt as this is not always the case, but worthy of pointing out. So if you haven't done this already, please inform your vet about your dog's eating habits, just to play it safe. I feel that young puppies should be hungry, full of life and super enthusiastic about treats or human foods used for training.  

Once we have any medical concerns set aside, we can then try finding out what other reasons may behind a dog not being too interested in their food and high-value foods/treats. Since you mention she does not accept the cheese on walks, I am suspecting that there may be some fear/stress component at play or perhaps there are just too many distractions and she is too over stimulated.

In other words, I think your dog may be too over threshold too eat on walks, especially if she is able to eat the cheese at home. You can read here about threshold levels in dogs and evaluate whether you think this may play a role for the behavior you see on walks: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/

For regular heeling by your side (without looking up at you), you can train her to heel simply using the life reward of moving forward. In other words, when she pulls, you stop walking in your tracks or even turn around and walk the opposite direction, when she doesn't pull, you walk forward. In other words, a tense leash is your brakes, and a loose leash is your accelerator.

The first walks may feel like they take forever, but with repetition, most dogs grasp the idea, although they tend to revert to leash pulling when around strong distractions, but this is true with any other methods used.  It helps to take baby steps and introduce distractions gradually starting first by practicing in the home, then in the yard or front sidewalk, then on walks in quiet areas, and apply these same methods over and over. 

For attention heeling, if she is responsive to toys, you can use a squeaky toy and keep it at your eye level and praise for looking up at you. After several steps of heeling, you can then reward by giving the squeaky toy (make sure you give it when your dog is not jumping). Being that Lakeland terriers were bred for "going to ground" on the farm in hunt for vermin, she may be naturally attracted to toys small as mice and that squeak. Of course, you can try this exercise with any other toys she likes such as showing the toy tug and then after doing several steps of looking up, you can reward her by letting her tug it/carry it in her mouth. 

Now, on walks it could happen as well that she may not be interested in toys, so in that case, we need to evaluate what is causing her stress and possibly work on that to get to the bottom of the problem. 

 

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by AdrienneFarricelli