How do I know if pushing is working?

[Lee Charles Kelley]

I wouldn't do the pushing exercise with treats only, if that's what you've been doing. I would just mix some sort of food that is more desirable to the dog into her kibble. I would also marinate the kibble for 20 mins. or so in hot water before doing the pushing exercise.

Also, try to think of the pushing exercise as a fun game for the dog. The more fun it is, the less you'll need to rely on the tastiness of the food to get results. One way to do this is to integrate a game of tag -- where your dog is it and has to chase you around the yard before you open your hand and let her eat. This should only take about 10 - 15 secs. Tease her with the food, praise her, then run away, encouraging her to chase you. When she catches up, zig-zag, change directions, fake left and go right, stop and start, etc. Mix things up, praising her excitedly the whole time. Sometimes I'll even "fall" to the ground, let the dog jump on top of me, then get up and race off again.

The idea is to increase her feelings of attraction toward you. Then when you start pushing again she'll probably push much harder.

There is one caveat: whenever a dog chases something, including its owner, the act of chasing automatically stimulates an urge to bite. Playing chase is great for inducing a dog to play tug-of-war, but it can have a tendency to make a dog, esp. one who doesn't know you very well, get a bit too nippy during the pushing exercise. So use it sparingly.

There are two other factors that can have an effect on how hard your dog pushes: 1) the use of verbal corrections (scolding, saying "No!", etc.) and 2) using too much affection, particularly as a way of calming the dog. If you use verbal corrections you're creating more resistance between you and the dog, which will make it harder for her to push into you. When you use physical affection to calm the dog even though you're doing what is normal and natural for humans, but you're also short-circuiting the dog's normal way of offloading tension and emotional pressure, which is through chewing or biting a prey object. Affection is fine and good, but not as a way of reducing the dog's feelings of tension or stress.

I hope this helps!
LCK
“Changing the World, One Dog at a Time”
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[cliff]

Re "tasty". It's really messy, but, instead of wetting the food with water, try cracking some raw egg into the food supply (one egg lasts 2 meals for us— but experiment. I think a little bit can go a long way).

[neilsattin]

At the beginning, a combination of tastiness and hunger are great ways to help get your dog into the game of pushing. And doing it outdoors (important) so as not to add stress to the system.

Over time, the satisfaction that your dog experiences through the game of pushing is infinitely more "tasty" than the food could ever be. So at that point, once your dog learns the love of the push, you can start scaling back on tastifying things - because your dog's enthusiasm will render the taste of the food somewhat moot. So it's much more important in the beginning, less so as the days go on.

As an example, my dog used to eat only half-heartedly, if at all. She'd skip meals even.

However, at this point, when I push with her, I don't doctor her food at all - just head out with a scoop of kibble in my pouch around her meal time. And when I don't push with her at mealtime (i.e. just put food in the bowl) - she eats EAGERLY. So I would say, then, that pushing actually adds flavor to her kibble, even when there's no pushing happening.

Hope that makes sense!

[Valerie]

Thanks for all of the responses, I will be rereading this often...