Train us or just feed us!
When questioned about possible weight problems from training with food, we R+ trainers always say something like, “No problem! Just subtract the training calories from your dogs’ daily meals and it will work out!”
For me, that’s not as easy as it sounds.
Am I the only one for whom this is a problem? Sometimes I wonder before I publish these kinds of things exactly how many people are as compulsive as I am have situations similar to mine. But then I figure that the world is a big place, so perhaps this will help somebody out there.
Here’s my situation:
- I have three dogs who vary in size, who all love to be trained;
- I want everybody to have approximately the same number of reps in training;
- I hate counting kibble; and
- I don’t want to use all the dogs’ kibble for training.
And here’s is a graphic representation of the problem:
For each doggie meal, Clara gets a generous 1/2 cup, Summer gets 1/3 cup, and Zani gets 1/4 cup.
Clara’s, Summer’s, and Zani’s meals
So let’s say I want to take out 30 pieces of kibble from each for training. That will generally let each dog work on one to three behaviors.
Look what happens to their meals:
Clara’s, Summer’s, and Zani’s meals after training treats removed
Poor Zani! It only puts a dent in Clara’s meal, it leaves a halfway decent amount for Summer, but Zani is left with less than half of her meal! That bugs me! One of the reasons I virtually always feed my dogs before training is that I don’t want them working on an empty stomach. And Zani may be littler, but it’s not fair taking away such a bigger percentage of her food!
But on the other hand, if I take away less of her meal, she gets fewer training reps than the other two.
And here I am still counting kibble.
Two-Part Solution
I finally figured out what to do.
1) Switch Zani to smaller kibble. I shopped around and found a comparable kibble with smaller, but not tiny bites. It’s nice for carrying around in my pocket for training treats, too. Here’s what their meals look like now, with approximately 30 pieces removed for training.
Clara’s, Summer’s, and Zani’s meals, training treats removed, after Zani’s food switch
So Zani has the same number of training reps as the others, but still has the majority of her meal intact. (Now Summer is the one who looks a little cheated, but I’m going to say this is the best I can do for now.)
2) Weigh the kibble, don’t count it. I don’t mind giving a plug for my trusty Oxo kitchen scale here. I switch it to grams for weighing kibble, since I can get a little more precision that way. Believe it or not, that’s 30 pieces of Zani’s new kibble on the scale. For me, weighing is a lot quicker than counting.
Weighing kibble on kitchen scale
Everybody’s different. Some people would never consider switching a dog’s food just to change kibble size. But this solution works for me because I tend to switch my dogs’ kibble around every once in a while anyway, just to make sure they are getting a variety of the lesser nutrients. So that doesn’t bother me. Plus none of mine has any particular digestive issues (knock on wood).
On days when I don’t plan any training, I can switch Zani back to the old kibble, or switch the other dogs to hers if I want. (Another consideration is whether the foods have a similar calorie count per volume or weight. Mine worked out to be close enough without any extra tinkering necessary.)
Sorry this doesn’t offer anything to the raw feeders, who have a whole different set of challenges.
I would love to hear from some folks with a bigger spread in their dogs’ weights. What do you all do?
Coming Up:
- BarkBusters: Myths about Barking
- Why Counterconditioning Didn’t “Work”
- How Skilled are You at Ignoring? (Extinction Part 2)
- Thesholds: The Movie!
- What if Respondent Learning Didn’t Work?
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