My co-worker will be getting a puppy soon and wants to know how to maximize his puppy's training. My first thought was to hand feed the puppy all it's meals. Is kibble the best food to use for convenience and cleanliness? He feeds his other dog raw, and I'm not sure what to recommend. Any suggestions?

He could cook some of the muscle meat part and cut it small, hand-feeding that part.

Make sure he doesn't leave bones out for this project, of course.... kibble is better than no-bone raw.

But wow.... I can't picture using kibble just for this reason. I can't wait to hear from the puppy experts.

Rubber dishwashing gloves.

Haha.... yeah.. that will work, but last case.

I also thought of prepping small, raw, ground beef portions (didn't think of cooking - good idea), and having him feed that first, then tossing in the RMBs after the 2-3 min training session.

Curious to hear other suggestions as well.

Chop chicken necks into .25' pieces. Gloves are not that bad an idea. But I would use the thinner disposable ones like in the Dr. office

My dog is raw fed, and when I am using her meals for training I use either my own raw ground mix rolled into tiny balls and frozen (kind of a PITA to prepare) or the RedBarn meat rolls sold here at Leerburg: RedBarn meat rolls page

Feed the muscle meat and organ meat portion as dehydrated meats. Dehydrated liver breaks up very nicely into small treats, muscle meat is more fiberous and will require a knife or sissors to cut up small.

If you don't have your own dehydrator, you can order dehydrated meat strips:
http://myworld.ebay.com/eagle_mtn/

I know the propieter personally. I trust her product. (Although the feet and wings scare me, I'm concerned about feeding dry bone.) I use her liver strips for all of my food training. She says meat dehydrates at 3:1, liver at 4:1, so you'd take the regular liver portion and divide by 4 to weigh out the liver portion in dried liver, or divide the muscle meat qutoa by 3...

The smaller the dog, the more realisitc feeding all food as training treats is. Training treats should be very small to not grab the puppy's attention long, so a larger dog may get bored or frustrated with training before he's had his full calorie intake. The dog won't learn as well if it's just frustrated and hungry, and can't focus on the lesson. My dogs are rather large, so I can get by with just the organ meat portion for training, which is great because it's a much bigger motivator than the muscle meat treats.