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Feeding CMDs Peacefully

LGDs, CMDs included, are interesting dogs where food and feeding is concerned.

It is a good thing to handle feeding times well, so that the dogs don’t develop food aggression, or resource guarding, to other dogs, livestock, or people.

I feed my CMDs once a day, and they are clipped to the fence at their buckets on short chains. I feed just enough ration to be cleaned right up in a few minutes. Their ration changes depending on weight and age, but it is important that they clean it up. I use metal chains so I can leave the leashes by the buckets, and each dog has it’s own bucket that it returns to.

After all the dogs are finished, they are all praised, hugged, kissed, and let loose. If a dog finishes early, he has to sit politely and wait.

There are a million ways you can do this, but this is how I do it for several reasons:
*Dogs are never worried, in their pens and corrals, about defending an eating territory. I define that territory, and this lends itself to ongoing peace in the pack.

*Dogs get just enough food to keep them interested in the food, as LGDs sometimes have a trait to protect feed buckets (resource guarding) rather than eat food. Limiting their food prevents the development of this trait. If you see a dog lie down to protect it’s bucket, and there is food in that bucket, he is being fed too much and you are cultivating an aggressive trait. Remove the food, and try again the next day with less food.

*The leashing promotes daily handling, which LGDs sometimes don’t get, and reinforces a leash as a positive thing. Several of my dogs are in training to pack and pull, so this is very helpful. They look forward to slipping their heads into the leash.

A complicated and aggressive time at feeding usually means too much food, and not enough alpha mentoring by the human. Sometimes there is an actual genetic problem, but usually it is more that you haven’t shaped your packs behavior in this area. It is not intuitive! You’d think that a dog would guard MORE if he had a limited food supply, but this isn’t the case. A hungry dog eats his food up, and then is satisfied.

Skipping food: It is an old farmer trick to withhold food for a day, if the dogs in general are agitated at feeding time. I have done this with great success. It refocuses them onto the food. LGDs are not very food-addicted. You can train how they respond to food by keeping their rations down to what they clean up in a feeding. Having to skip food means you were feeding too much. I have had visiting dogs who literally curled up by the feed bucket and began to guard, not even beginning to eat. Dog’s like this have their feed removed after meal time is over, and they get to try again the next day. Sometimes even then they just eat a partial meal, but by day three the resource guarding is over and they are eating with dedication.

In general, this cools peer struggles, and get’s the dogs’ attention off hierarchy. I now have a small area in a stall where I do this, where I can close the goats out, feed the dogs in a few minutes, and then open it back up.