To what extent does food govern a dog's mind? This is a question that most owners have had to face at one time another, and many of them think food occupies most of the waking and thinking hours of their dogs.
The hunting instinct is extremely strong in most dogs; therefore, with problem dogs that chase and kill chickens or other livestock, the only act is only what nature taught them to do many thousands of years ago.
Their noses were designed for tracking down and killing, and although domesticity has vastly reduced the number of breeds who hunt to kill, greyhounds, foxhounds and like breeds still in fact have this instinct highly developed. Many other breeds would hardly know what to do with the prey they had killed since they no longer suffer from hunger. Without this urge to spur them on, the kill is not vital.
In the wild state, dogs killed twice or three times a week and ate until they nearly burst. Nowadays, from an early age our dogs' gastric juices have been trained to flow at fixed times each day, and normally the desire to eat becomes apparent only at these times. It is true there are greedy dogs who will eat at all times of the day and night to the detriment of the figures and health, but these are the dogs that are easily trained by bribes.
The dogs that are the most difficult to bribe are the naughtiest dogs, because their minds are usually fixed on fighting another dog or running off into the distance. The dogs that are most interested in food are the spoiled poodles and toy dogs whose owners give them snacks all the time.
Undoubtedly a young dog stealing food is a veterinary fault as well as a training fault, for many dog thieves commit this crime because they have worms and are always hungry. The food is not doing them as much good as it would without these parasites. However, the act of stealing is of course a training fault and has to be treated as such.
It is quite certain that the mind of the dog controls its expectation of food, and one hardly needs a clock in the house because a dog's saliva will commence running at exactly the same time each day in expectation of a feed, and it is always best to feed at regular hours if you wish your dog to stop pestering you at all hours. The same thing applies to food as an aid to training. If a puppy knows it is going to get a treat if it comes when called, or retrieves a toy, it is naturally going to do what you bid if it is feeling hungry. But it also means that if you stop giving it treats it will reason that you are a fraud, and it will then be more difficult to train than ever. However treats should not be used except in unusual cases when all other methods have failed.
This is especially important in the case of altered dogs, whose diet has to be rigidly controlled; old dogs, whose figures have already exceeded normal girth; and greedy dogs, who would never be satisfied with the small amounts given to them and would therefore get more cunning in the hope of getting more food.
The most important thing about food in connection with the dog is to follow a properly balanced diet with sufficient vitamins and iron, etc. For a dog to be intelligent it has to be sufficiently and adequately nourished. If a dog is lacking minerals it will eat rubbish and especially dung.
Only common sense and knowledge of the dietetic needs of a dog learned from experience, books or your vet will help you.
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