Hand Feeding: Stress for the Dog?

By Oliver Sanchez
Published on 01/25/2024
Reviewed by Dr. Greg Patterson

How does hand feeding work for dogs?

Feeding by hand using the slot machine principle:

The slot machine principle, in a figurative sense, refers to the unpredictability of food rewards. Similar to a slot machine, where small winnings are enough to keep playing in hopes of eventually hitting the jackpot.

The random reinforcement encourages your dog to continue working for the reward, achieving training successes in attention, obedience, and patience. We are essentially training our furry friend a behavioral pattern that positions us, as owners, as a counterbalance to external stimuli. Through attention, you can build a strong bond with your dog.

Training: Maintain eye contact during hand feeding:

Four-legged friends usually perceive intense eye contact as threatening. To practice and defuse future situations, you can use eye contact as a training element during hand feeding. Connect the reward for a command to your dog, such as sitting (sit!), with hand feeding and eye contact training. This is done as follows: Sitting alone is not immediately rewarded; instead, you wait until your dog looks at you, expecting the treat. When your dog makes eye contact, you give out the food. Gradually, you extend the duration of eye contact.

A good way is to hold the food in your hand until the dog looks away from the food and focuses on you. Dogs that learn to maintain eye contact concentrate their entire attention solely on the owner. Confirm this behavior with a friendly “yes” or “good” and only then feed the dog. Show them that their behavior is the right one. Alternatively, you can place the food at a distance in front of your dog, and only when they make eye contact, give them access to the food.

In conclusion, hand feeding aims to teach initially unwanted behavior to the dog, making it a behavior they willingly perform later on.

General Tips for Hand Feeding

If you want to try hand feeding with your four-legged friend, there are several things to consider. Work in small steps and practice consistently and persistently. Hand feeding doesn’t exclusively mean giving treats but can also be a replacement or partial replacement for the bowl. Ensure that you don’t subject your four-legged friend to constant hunger and stress by feeding in small portions. Often, a treat is given as a reward, not an entire meal. You can test this during a walk when your dog isn’t pulling on the leash, stays focused on you, promptly responds to recall, or engages in trick training.

Avoid feeding regularly, as it can create a time-based expectation in the dog. Spread your dog’s feeding behavior throughout the day, i.e., feed at different times.
Start by feeding your dog at home to get them accustomed to your hand. However, filling the bowl, sitting in front of the dog with it, and simply feeding them by hand is not the long-term goal. During hand feeding, the entire meal is distributed in small portions throughout the day, but generally, the dog should do something in return.
In the second step, shift the feeding mainly outside, into a stimulating environment. This way, your dog learns that it makes sense to maintain contact with you even in the presence of external stimuli.
Feed your furry friend in different locations and in varying quantities.
Show emotional joy toward your four-legged friend, not just during feeding.
Follow the slot machine principle during feeding, allowing your furry friend a range of winning possibilities based on their obedience, execution of commands, or efforts to maintain eye contact.

What should I consider when hand feeding my dog outdoors?

After discussing the slot machine principle, the importance of eye contact, and general tips, let’s add what you should consider when training hand feeding outdoors. It’s important to demonstrate perseverance. After training at home, you should transition feeding by hand outdoors. From then on, consistent practice is crucial.

The first successes: He’s eating from my hand!

At the beginning, there are often quick successes with hand feeding. It’s great if you can say: He’s practically eating from my hand, right?!

This is because your dog’s focus is now very strongly on the food. The social attractiveness of humans for the dog arises or must be learned only from this food dependency. For this, you need a bit more patience until you achieve lasting positive results. In essence, there’s nothing wrong with permanently replacing half of the feeding with hand feeding.

Note: For furry friends that are particularly shy and/or those moving to a new home, hand feeding is beneficial for building trust and mutual “sniffing.” Trust-building works for shy dogs when they are rewarded with hand-fed food for satiation, not just for demonstrated tricks. However, for confident four-legged friends, you can integrate hand feeding into shared play or training. This ultimately helps your dog understand that it serves as a reward when they have accomplished something and should be enjoyable for them.

Pros and Cons of Hand Feeding

Positive Aspects:

In summary, strengthening the bond is cited as a positive aspect of hand feeding. Hand feeding is often integrated for specific purposes, such as training obedience. For instance, when outdoors during a walk, the four-legged friend might be distracted and less interested in the owner but more focused on the surroundings. Hand feeding is used to make oneself more interesting and redirect the attention of the four-legged companion.

Especially outdoors, it is crucial that the dog perceives and listens to you when necessary. The goal of this method is to increase social sympathy and attractiveness of the human for your dog. However, initial practice should be done at home to familiarize the four-legged friend with your hand. How you can integrate hand feeding into your daily life with your four-legged companion has been explained above. Hand-feeding dry food is, of course, easier than feeding wet food.

Negative Effects:

However, there are also negative effects of hand feeding. If feeding is exclusively done by hand, your four-legged friend will never know exactly when they will be fed. With a bowl in front of them, they can simply help themselves when hunger strikes and eat as they please. If you only feed small portions by hand and never the entire ration, your furry friend will never know how much they are getting and if it’s enough to satisfy their hunger. This automatically triggers constant stress. They are automatically degraded as a means to an end. The perception that humans are mere food dispensers is only reinforced.

An argument against strengthening the bond between dog and human through hand feeding is that it only builds dependence and requires constant monitoring of the dog. A good partnership between two- and four-legged beings is based on trust and not dependencies. Associating rewards only with food bribery is not the right approach. Unfortunately, some dog owners also use hand feeding to reassert their position in the family pack when the dog exhibits rebellious behavior.

Alternative Approaches to Hand Feeding:

Solely relying on hand feeding can lead to the desired success, but it may not be the only method of choice. Advocates of the negative arguments recommend a combination of traditional bowl feeding and hand feeding:

One meal should be placed in the bowl, and the second should be hand-fed throughout the day, preferably as a reward. Stress decreases because the initial hunger is satisfied, making concentration on tasks more successful.
It is not educationally meaningful to praise the dog with enticing auditory signals and offering food. In that case, the dog is merely reactive and does not show the desired socially related initiative. The dog should want to initiate and maintain contact!
One can strengthen the bond with the dog without resorting to the extreme of purely hand-feeding – walks, obedience exercises, visits to a dog park, outings, cuddle sessions – simply living a normal life with the dog, and the bond will naturally develop.

Conclusion: With some practice, hand feeding can be used effectively, but not everyone has the knack for it. In such cases, professional dog training is advisable. Approaching it half-heartedly and without patience is futile, doesn’t lead to success, and won’t satisfy you or your dog.