My friends and clients think I’m a very mean dog daddy. And Grendel makes it a point of reinforcing that assumption. She looks at them with those big brown eyes that seem to telepathically communicate the dire circumstances of her life. She is starving. Cruelly. She needs a treat. And not one of those small dog sizes either. She’ll take the bulldog-sized portion, please. It’s hard to say no to those eyes. They’re almost convincing. But a glance at her waistline tells a vastly different story of her life.
“But she’s always hungry!”
I hear this objection every day, and not just with regards to Grendel. Pets get overfed because they are forever begging for food. Whether it’s additional kibble, a tidbit from the table, or those super awesome treats in the crinkly bag, many pets will do their best to convince us we are the only thing standing between them, and imminent death by starvation. But are they really hungry?
One of the most memorable (and harrowing) surgeries of my career involved a miniature dachshund, and a five-pound bag of cat food. The twelve-pound dog had eaten his way through four pounds of food before the owner came home and caught him. Mind you, he was still eating! The stomach had expanded so dramatically, that he was struggling to breathe. His heart rate was dangerously irregular. I had to surgically remove the food from his stomach to save his life. It was one of the riskiest procedures I have ever done. I remember the owner asking me, “What the heck was he thinking after the first pound of food? How about the third? Was he seriously still hungry?!
No, he was not. Neither is Grendel, and more than likely, neither is your pet. This is why it’s crucial to understand the difference between hunger and food drive.
Hunger vs. Food Drive
As I’ve mentioned previously in this series, dogs and cats descended from wild hunters who were sometimes forced to go days, even weeks between kills. Their every thought and action revolved around food. This desire to seek out and obtain food, also known as food drive, was vital for their survival. While our modern day house pets rarely miss meals, they have retained the instinct to eat as much as possible, whenever possible, as if they do not know for certain when they will eat again.
To this day, they remain opportunistic feeders that will never pass up an opportunity to eat. Their bodies still tell them to prepare for lean times that will never come by driving them to eat whenever they can, and obtaining food by whatever means they feel is necessary. If whining leads to larger meals, they will whine. It Grandma doles out treats, they will harass Grandma. If the kids throw them Cheerios, they will camp next to the high chair. Combine this with the natural instinct to conserve calories, rather than burn them, and you have a recipe for a portly pet.
High five for food drive!
If you have a food-driven pet, don’t despair. In fact some behaviorists consider high food drive to be a good thing. A pet with a high food drive may have other drives that we rarely notice because they are not as obvious (read, annoying!). A food-driven dog may be just as content to catch a tennis ball, or go for a brisk walk. Cats are natural hunters. A food-driven cat may enjoy “killing” a crinkly toy far more then she enjoys eating a treat. Many pets will bug us for food simply because it forces us to interact with them. They don’t crave the treat nearly as much as they crave the treat event.
To us, tossing Fluffy a potato chip is a mindless activity. To them, it’s a very big deal, perhaps even the highlight of their day. Which is a sad commentary on how they spend the day. Like many of their human counterparts, pets will often seek out food to relieve boredom. Teaching them some new and more interesting behaviors can eventually displace behaviors like begging and tearing open bags of cat food. How do we do this? Well, ironically by using food.
A pet with a high food drive is saying “This is what motivates me.” Armed with this knowledge, you can teach them in a way that helps them learn quickly. Old school trainers despise the use of food rewards, but to me the food is like currency. If you tapped someone on the shoulder and they gave you a dollar, wouldn’t you be tempted to tap them on the shoulder again? Surely you would at least pay an unusual amount of attention to that person. I mean, they gave you a dollar. What if that scenario was repeated twenty times? You would probably never let that person out of your sight. And that’s the point. When using food to train a food-motivated pet, you become the center of their attention very quickly. This, combined with their “currency” of choice, makes them almost ridiculously easy to train.
That being said, I cannot in good conscience discuss food rewards without discussing the size of said rewards! Remember it’s not the treat, it’s the treat event. At Casa Kupkee, we use “training treats” that can be found at any pet store. They are about the size of a pencil eraser - and we cut them in half. Each reward should be about the size of a Tic-Tac. If you are doing a lot of training, adjust the size of your pet’s meals, and make sure the behaviors you are teaching involve some kind of physical activity. Once your pet has learned the behaviors, you can begin to cut back on the food rewards. Your goal is to eliminate them completely. Your pet’s old currency of food, will be replaced with the new currency of fun behaviors, and praise from you. A Certified Professional Dog Trainer can help you teach all sorts of behaviors that will lead to higher activity levels and better overall health. Cat people, I’m talking to you too. Your cat can do this. Really!
Back to Miss Grendel. As you’ve probably gathered, her food drive is off the charts. While our other dog was a natural trick dog, Grendel...hmmmm, how can I say this nicely?....she didn’t get picked for the gifted class. She’s adorable. And we love her to pieces. But let’s just say trick training didn’t work out, and leave it at that.
That being said, she is a scent hound to the core. One of her favorite activities is one we call the “find it game”. We put her in a sit stay while we hide a heavily-scented, yet tiny treat somewhere in the house. We then release her by saying “find it!” Her nose hits the floor, and off she goes. This game was easy to teach, as it takes advantage of both her food drive, and her natural instinct to track the reward using her nose. The calories she burns seeking out the treat far outweigh whatever she ingests when she finds it. It teaches her that treats are earned via working, not given to her simply because she demands them. Most importantly, it’s fun. And it’s healthier for us than sitting in front of the TV, or mindlessly scrolling through our news feeds.
Click here to watch a video of Grendel showing us exactly how it’s done.
She was a bit leaner when we shot the video, so we’re not making her work that hard. But nowadays, we use all the space our house provides. A word of caution, however - do not do this with more than one dog at a time. This can create perceived competition for food, which is likely to lead to fighting.
Join us in starting the New Year with a renewed commitment to Fluffy’s health. Learn how to use food drive to your advantage - and don’t let her convince you she’s starving!
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Dr. Kupkee is the lead practitioner at Sabal Chase Animal Clinic
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