Shut-down dog won't eat in your presence?

Do you have a fearful, feral, or shut-down dog who is too afraid to eat treats in your presence consistently, or at all? This is more common than you might think. 

Luckily, you can help your dog learn to be more comfortable eating in your presence, so that you can use food more effectively to build your dog's confidence and teach them skills they need to thrive in our human world. 

Eating is behavior, which means that it's something we can train. If you have a dog who is reluctant to eat when people are nearby, stop thinking of eating treats as a reward for other behaviors, and instead focus on eating as something worthy of being rewarded in its own right. 

In the video below I give 3 steps to take to train your dog to eat treats in your presence. There are video examples included. In summary, the three steps are: 
1) Identify when and where you dog eats consistently right now. Details that might matter to your dog include location, time of day, what food, eating from what bowl, food toy, etc., and where you are and what you're doing;

2) Add more easy eating opportunities to generalize eating behavior to more locations/contexts. Often the simplest way to help your dog get more eating "practice" while varying the context a little bit, is to add additional eating "stations" (or "treat targets") very close to where they currently eat meals;

3) Once your dog is eating readily in a number of locations, add in a LITTLE bit of your presence. This must be done very gradually for most fearful dogs. For example, if your dog will eat right now while you're sitting across the room with your back to them, a small increase in difficulty might be to turn your chair just a little so your shoulder is pointing toward them, rather than your back. 

Want to learn more about building confidence and trust with your fearful or shut-down dog? Join me for a free training, "4 Key Steps to Building Your Fearful Dog's Confidence".