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Attention:  Raw foods can be contaminated with dangerous bacteria which can harm your dog, you, or your family so be careful! If you're going to feed your dog a raw diet that you assemble yourself you should take care to provide your dog with all the necessary nutrients and avoid foods that are harmful.

Using raw or wet foods in training can be a little messier than using dry foods. It's certainly not impossible, but raw food does present some challenges.

Fortunately, you don't need to use ALL of your dog's food for training. Depending on what sort of training your dog needs, you may only need a small amount of food for training, in which case you don't need to change much about how you feed your dog, assuming your dog is motivated by food.

If your dog is not motivated by food, you don't need to change what you feed your dog but you should change how you feed your dog. Feeding a dog from a bowl teaches a dog to take food for granted, making it much less useful in training. Feeding from hollow chew toys and puzzle feeders is a good way to preserve the value of food without having to hand-feed it actively during training. Check out our Better than a Bowl DADD to learn more.

Finally, if you're dealing with any sort of fear or anxiety problem, the more of your dog's food you can use for training, the faster you will be able to resolve the problem. Classical conditioning takes lots of repetitions and that means lots of pieces of food!

If you'd like to learn more about how to use food in training, you should keep reading and then enroll in our free course; Six Simple Steps to Solve Your Dog's Behavior Problems.

Or, join the Top Dog Academy to get access to ALL of our online courses, plus our private support community, for just $20/month.

Consider a Commercially Available Dried Food for Training

There are some excellent, high-quality dog foods available now that are produced using methods that preserve the nutritional value of the ingredients without the addition of preservatives or unwanted chemicals. These foods are usually air-dried or freeze-dried and they are well-balanced and healthy, but also dry and easy to handle and use in training. The biggest downside is that they can be expensive, especially if you use them for your dog's entire diet, and especially if you have a large dog. Fortunately, you can use these foods as a supplement to your dog's diet, using them only when you are hand-feeding your dog. 

Ziwi Peak produces an excellent air-dried raw food that makes for an excellent food reward during training. Most dogs love it and it's healthy and well-balanced. Of course, there are also lots of commercially available dog "treats" but be aware, these are junk food. They are not well-balanced, and if you feed your dog too many of these, they can cause health problems. That said, they can be very useful when used carefully, for special situations.

Use Vegetables, Fruits, and Nuts for Hand-Feeding

A well-balanced raw diet will include ingredients like vegetables, fruits, and nuts. These ingredients are much easier to handle and use in training than the raw meat and organs that make up the rest of a raw diet so use these easy-to-handle ingredients for active training. You can cut them up into bite sized pieces and do some preference testing to figure out which ones are your dog's favorites.

Turn Raw Diet into Dry, Bite-Size Pieces at Home

If you want to make use of more of your dog's food in training, or you use a raw diet that is already ground up, you can turn this food into easier-to-handle, bite size pieces to use in training.  Grind your dog's food until it is a consistency where you can extrude it into a long snake shape on a baking sheet. Put it in the oven and bake it at a very low temperature, for a long time, until the outside is completely dry. Then, break it into bite sized pieces. If this exposes wet parts of the interior, you can put it back in the oven until all the pieces are dry on the outside. Keep in mind, this is not shelf-stable food, it needs to be refrigerated until use and then consumed before it spoils.

You can also use a dehydrator to make your own jerky out of raw meat and then cut it down into small, bite size pieces.

Fill Hollow Chew Toys with Raw/Wet Foods

Stuffing food into a hollow chew toy is a great way to feed your dog because it keeps them occupied, trains them to love and play with their chew toys, and doesn't teach them to take food for granted, so they still value food when you want to use it in training.

You can use food that is ground up, or you can stuff food into chew toys however it will fit in. If you're worried about the mess, you can have your dog eat from their chew toys inside a crate, which will also help them enjoy spending time in their crate. Or you can tether the chew toy to a wall in a room with an easy-to-clean floor, or over an easy-to-clean mat. Just be sure to clean chew toys thoroughly between meals. Many chew toys are dishwasher safe which can be super helpful.

Fill Squeeze Tubes

If you want to hand-feed raw or wet food during active training, one of the best ways to do it is by putting it into a squeeze tube. These reusable tubes are made for camping so you can easily bring just the right amount of whatever ingredient you need. They work great for dog training too. Just fill them with pureed dog food and then, when you want to reward your dog, just unscrew the cap and squirt a little bit right into their mouth.

If you want this to work well, you'll need to get the consistency right. Check out this article by Eileen Anderson for tips about using a squeeze tube for dog training.

Spoon-Feed Your Dog

If you don't want to buy squeeze tubes or worry about getting your dog's food to be just the right consistency, another easy way to feed raw during training is with a spoon. Put their food into a jar and when you're ready to give your dog a treat, just unscrew the lid, scoop out a small spoonful and feed it to your dog. If you use a metal spoon your dog will quickly learn to take food gently. This method works pretty well regardless of what consistency your dog's food is. Try using the empty spoon as a lure, in much the same way you would use an empty hand to lure your dog when you start phasing out food. If you're not leaving home, you don't need a jar, you could just put the food in a bowl that you keep out of reach from your dog.

Get Messy (or Use Gloves)

Of course, you can also feed your dog raw food using your bare hands. You can cut the food up into bite-size pieces or grind it up and then pinch off bite size pieces as needed. Obviously, you'll need to wash your hands thoroughly after each training session so you don't get raw food everywhere. Alternatively, you could reusable dishwashing gloves or disposable rubber gloves, and that way, if you need to do something with your hands you can remove the gloves and do what you need to immediately.

Don't Let Your Dog's Diet Stand in the Way of Training

There are a lot of wonderful reasons to feed your dog raw or wet food, but please, don't let it stand in the way of your dog's education.

This is especially true if your dog has any sort of behavior or temperament problems that are hurting their quality of life (or yours). 

LEARN MORE

If you'd like to learn more about how to how to use food to help your dog feel comfortable around people you should enroll in our free course; Six Simple Steps to Solve Your Dog's Behavior Problems.

Or, join the Top Dog Academy to get access to ALL of our online courses, plus our private support community, for just $20/month.

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