Why we hand fed our dog and why we (mostly) stopped

Buckle up for a lengthy, nuanced journey

Scout doesn’t have a food bowl. We adopted her over two years ago, and to this day we don’t own a dog dish! (Okay, we do have a cute custom water bowl for her now, but still. Nothing for food )

For the first solid year and a half of owning our cattle dog, we hand fed her almost every single meal. After that, we started box feeding for a while with intermittent hand feeding. Nowadays she gets most of her food “for free” in a snuffle mat or puzzle ball.

My thoughts on having dogs work for all of their food have changed quite a bit over time. I do my best to sum up that evolution here, going through:

• What hand feeding even is

• Why we hand fed in the first place

• Why we’ve stopped having Scout work for every meal

Like everything in dog training, it’s a nuanced discussion — and there’s always more to talk about. I’d love to chat through your own experiences or questions you have! (I’m not saying I’ll have answers about anything beyond our own personal experience, but I’m happy to dive into a discu…