Does your dog sit and wait for his or he food at dinner time? Awesome work!

As a person who easily gets hangry, I marvel at how well dogs can wait for food.

Because they’re dogs and food is usually a top motivator, we can use feeding time to our advantage for good manners.

From what I’ve observed over the years, here’s some tips to make this skill work to your advantage even better:

• Make sure your dog doesn’t go for the food until they get a release word
• Set the rule that your dog has to look at YOU (not stare at the food) to get their release to eat
• After putting the bowl down, if your dog has mastered waiting, practice a couple of other commands they have to do before released to eat

If you are finding yourself wondering how other people do this and thinking your dog would never wait for their food and would just about crash tackle you to get to the bowl, this is a great opportunity to work on some training that is actually more simple than you might think.

Get started at the Dog Matters Academy to learn the principles to help you teach this and much more:

1. Browse the free lessons in the Dog Matters Academy
2. Sign up for Academy Premium and take the full training program that will improve any behaviour you’re struggling with with your dog
3. Read my free ebook, The Good Dog and submit a question for me to answer within the same module area