Here is a subject that my wife and I have been mulling over the past few days and we need some input. We have a 12 week old Leerburg Pup (out of the Sage/ CJ litter and it is a fantastic pup------thanks Ed!) We want to teach food refusal to the dog since there has been some crazy folks around here. What is a good age to begin that training and how do you do it???

Now is good. If you want a clearer expanation you can PM me and I will give you my phone # and explain it better. Puppy on leash. Someone comes up with food in hand but not exposed and puts hand in front of puppy. No food comes out, puppy gets bored and looks at you. Big payout from you person walks away. I would repeat this until puppy looks at you right away when person walks up, then up the ante a little bit, and repeat. keep adding until you can be out of site of the dog. This is for food refusal in ring sport. I would adjust this to where you think this might occur like in the backyard and so on.

Training a dog for food refusal for a sport is quite different than training it for life. The ring is a specific situation and so it's much easier. In many cases that situation it's more food "ignoring" than refusal.

Training a dog to refuse or ignore food for life will require a life time of training. Koehler recommended using a fence charger and leaving the wires expose with pieces of meat on it for months on end.

There are also many decisions that need to be answered. Are you going to be the only one to feed your dog? Better not ever leave town for business or a vacation. Do you want the dog to only eat from his bowl? Better have a couple of spares in case the main one gets lost or broken.

I wrote an article on this topic that is on Dr. P's website at

http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/dog/LA/castle2.htm

I had a PP dog that I trained (he was damned good if I may say, LOL) anyways, I had many other dogs, and I had a neighbor who killed one of my dogs, on purpose, by feeding her a bucket of fried chicken. It ripped her insides clean open, and she vomited nothing but chicken bones, before dying. Long story, about how I know it was her but trust me. I had a really valuable male, my top stud dog, whom, I refused to let be a victim. I don't encourage the following unless, you have thought this out thoroughly. I trained my dog from that point that it was a hostile act for someone to attempt to feed him. I taught him to go into a bark and hold if someone tried to feed him. Only my wife and I could feed him. In reality the dog was probably screwed if anything ever happened to both of us, but I was more worried about poisoning than anything, so I did. If someone is going to teach for the end result Like did, understand, that you must have control of your dog at all times, that means neighbors not able to toss him something (innocently) over the fence, therefore my kennel was situated to where neighbors couldn't feed him. They would have to come up into my yard to feed him, and in reality he couldn't do a bark and hold because of the chainlink from his kennel, but he damn sure would get nasty and run them off. He would not touch the food later either, which was what he was taught. Also, I informed my neighbors including the one who did it, that my dogs could no longer be fed, and would attack or attempt to attack if someone tried to feed them. I never had a problem again like that again.

Just to clarify they were never suppose to be feeding my dogs in the first place, but people not into dogs like most of us don't know any better, they think their being nice giving fluffy, a weiner here and there. EEEHHHH, NOT!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

I have also thought of food refusal. I have read Lous article and he has such good points I was worried about training becuase I dont want to regret it later if something happens to his bowl, or me, or if I go out of town. I do have a question though... cant you teach the dog to eat on command? To refuse until a command is given? And do you have to use an e-collar to teach refusal?
( <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />still saving my money for one Lou! Ill contact you as soon as I have the money)

I would assume you could train a refusal until a release command was given, then the dog could eat. Kinda like a stay command with a release.
I always teach "leave it" and then extensively proof it until they basiclly avoid any food that isn't from their bowl or my hand. Toys and tugs they find sometimes they can have without a leave-it command but food is always a "leave it" item. My criteria for leave-it is that they are NEVER allowed to smell or even look at the item after I tell to "leave-it". They tend to automaticlly avoid it since they are NEVER going to have it.
If you were to train with a release, the command would now have a different meaning all together. Leave-it would mean you can't smell/look at it until I tell you you can and the automatic avoidance that would have been learned with "never" being part of the command would be lost.
I wouldn't trust a dog to be reliable since they are always wandering if "this one is gonna have a release". You'd have to make it a different cue to seperate it from the one where you never want the dog to even think about the item again.
You don't have to use a e-collar either. You don't neccesarily want to punish the dog for showing interest in the leave-it item, but rather reward for avoidance of it. Reward when his attention has left the item, even for a split second and returns, in the beginning stage of training and soon you'll have a dog who will instantly ignore anything he was looking at when you said to leave-it. Oncwe he knows the command you would want to correct for disobedience where he looks at the object after being told not to. Works for food, toys, other dogs, people, etc. Make sure you are consistent and specific in your rewards/punishments and proof well.

I think the biggest problem that I have is what if I go out of town or the dog has to be shipped somewhere---will he starve to death????

 Quote:

Just to clarify they were never suppose to be feeding my dogs in the first place, but people not into dogs like most of us don't know any better

"People not into dogs" "Like most of us" WTF am I saying... I'm only into training Malinois for competition and I'm on Leerburg web forum talking to dog people.. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> People please forgive me I have been in one to many explosions, literally, I had a really bad concussion (walked diagonally for 3weeks) from some rockets fired "danger close" from an apache attack helicopter during a firefight in afghanistan, and survived an IED blast in Iraq. I re-read that post and my typing wasn't jiving with my brain or maybe my brain just wasn't jiving at all <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> Sometimes while talking to people I completely loose thought of what I'm talking about (in mid sentence). If it makes sense but maybe you don't agree with it then I was ok when I wrote it, if It's like huh? what the hell is he talking about like the above comment, I lost track of what I was thinking for a second but kept typing. Thanks guys now you all speak duhon <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />.

>>People please forgive me I have been in one to many explosions, literally, I had a really bad concussion (walked diagonally for 3weeks) from some rockets fired "danger close" from an apache attack helicopter during a firefight in afghanistan, and survived an IED blast in Iraq.

Now I know why you got a Malinois! hee hee hee lol <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Glad you're with us Chris even if you are a Mal owner! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />