Dinner Time at the Detroit Dog Trainer's House
I am often asked about feeding multiple large, powerful dogs. Many people relate to me that the dogs can be well behaved all day, but that as soon as food comes out a fight starts.
Other people say that their dogs may fight sometimes, but when they feed them together the dogs are SURE to fight.
At the moment I have 5 dogs in my home, 4 of which have violent episodes in their past. One dog in particular, Skippy, has had many fights and bites during feeding time and it was a real problem for him.
I decided to try and film feeding time at my house with 5 dogs, 4 of which are pitbulls, to demonstrate to people how to go about it without any problems whatsoever.
Dinner Time, here goes:
The first part involves letting the dogs into the house. As it is winter here and they get wet and dirty outside, they must enter the house in an orderly fashion and allow me to wipe their feet upon entry.
Next, they must calm down and behave before I give them food. I ask them to either sit or lie down. I watch the dogs and try to reward the most attentive and calmest dog first. I only move to adjust the dogs if one starts paying too much attention to another's food (or worse).
Fights, should they break out, get broken up immediately and the fighters get sent to bed without finishing supper. Keeping a calm, assertive state of mind and supervising the whole thing are the main points to successful feeding without aggression issues.
Finally, they must eat from their own bowl and ignore the other bowls. If all that goes well, they get treats for dessert. A few notes about that first video: I had Chris stick the camera in the face of each dog while eating to show that they will not bite or react strongly to anything. Also, you may hear some coughing, there is quite a bit of 'natural gas' released while they eat and it isn't really coughing you hear so much as gagging.
You may recognize Chris, Charlie's new pack leader. I invited Chris and Charlie over to share the experience of feeding a pack of dogs at one time. I knew it would be a positive experience for Charlie and I figured I could rope Chris into filming it for me (thanks Chris!). The soundtrack is not so much for the dogs as for me. Staying calm and not worrying about a fight are key to pulling this off. I watch or listen to things pleasing to me to help me relax during feeding. If I can stay calm, the dogs will too.
Hope you enjoyed it and find something in there that can help you.