Mental toughness: Our dog box feeding experience
Mental toughness: Our dog box feeding experience
Why is my dog's head in a box, with a tiny measuring spoon?
In the fall of 2020, I started box feeding with my blue heeler Scout. It’s been an incredibly fun—and honestly fascinating—experience to see her get braver in the face of distractions!
I’ve gotten more questions on box feeding than any other part of our training in the past months. What is it, exactly? Why do it? How did we start? And what on earth is the purpose of the measuring spoon?
I am by no means a box feeding pro, but I’ve compiled everything I know about the exercise here—including what our personal experience has been like and where you can go to learn from the folks who really are experts.
What is dog box feeding?
At its simplest, box feeding is a concentration exercise where your dog indicates (sniffs / points with their nose) on an article (a small object to indicate that the “restaurant” is open) inside of an opaque box. When they stay committed to the task through distractions, you drop food in the box as a reward.
I first learned about box feeding from dog trainer Pat Stuart, who learned about it from trainer Bart Bellon. When done properly, it builds mental toughness. The goal is to ultimately create a stronger dog who can better navigate the modern human world.
Box feeding basics:
The end picture is for your dog to indicate on an article in an otherwise empty box, waiting for you to drop in food.
You start slow and steady, making sure your dog will eat a whole meal out of the box before upping the criteria.
You shape your dog indicating on the article through successive approximations.
The article does two important things: 1) it tells your dog that the opportunity for food from the box is on the table and 2) makes the task very clear (“head in box” is not specific enough for some dogs).
Once you build duration (your dog’s ability to stay indicating on the article without you immediately throwing in food) around three seconds, you can start adding distractions.
When you add a distraction, you reward your dog immediately after for keeping their head in the box.
The intensity of the reward should be at least equal to or greater than the intensity of the distraction.
It’s important to leave an air gap between the reward and the next distraction so your dog learns that distractions bring food and not the other way around.
If your dog looks up at you, you wait them out until they put their head back in.
If your dog completely disengages with the box, you take it away (and with it, the opportunity for food) until your next session.
Before you run out of food, mark your dog out of the box (we use our terminal “yes” marker) and give them the last bit of food outside of it. This way they never find themselves not getting a reward for indicating on the article.
Box feeding might be akin to dog meditation
On episode 28 of the Something to Bark About podcast, Pat Stuart explains to Chad Mackin how he views box feeding as a form of dog meditation.
In box feeding, your dog actively focuses on one specific task. Every time they get distracted, they recommit to that task. This is similar to mindfulness or focused meditation in humans—and the exercise has a ton of benefits.
It’s not a perfect analogy. We can’t get inside our dogs’ heads to know exactly what they’re thinking and feeling (maybe their minds are wandering even while they appear focused on the outside), and the fact that we box feed with existential food (there is inherently pressure involved) raises questions about whether or not we can really call it meditation.
Either way, box feeding helps dogs build commitment to behaviors, and I consider it a form of focus work in our weekly dog training checklists.
Box feeding is a way to build mental toughness
Box feeding creates a stronger dog—a dog who can not only perform in the face of distractions but who actually sees those distractions as a cue to commit even harder to the task at hand. When your dog returns focus to the article even through scary things, they build a pattern of resilience.
Box feeding actually isn’t super complex!
Box feeding can seem overwhelming or “advanced” at first. I still remember the first time I saw another dog owner on Instagram post about it. I was utterly confused as to what they were doing. Teaching a sit stay or a recall seems straightforward enough, but this weird box thing? I mean, what on earth?
Thankfully, though, box feeding really isn’t that complicated. Once you get the basics down and master your timing of distractions and rewards, it becomes methodical (and pretty darn fun).
Box feeding supplies
Here’s all you need to box feed:
A sturdy, opaque box that can fit your dog’s entire head (the exact dimensions don’t matter, but in general it’s best to avoid anything extremely small or large)
An article (we use a small plastic measuring spoon—many owners use a steel washer or coin)
Your dog’s daily food
A willingness to learn and spend a few minutes each day on it!
Why did we start box feeding?
I’d first heard about box feeding a few months into owning Scout. We finally decided to go ahead and try it for a few reasons:
Scout can get better at handling environmental pressure
Scout is far more confident than she was when we first adopted her, but she can still be timid and sensitive to environmental pressure. Box feeding is a great way to further build her generalized bravery!
We aren’t using her daily food to navigate the world anymore
We held off on box feeding for a while because I initially loved hand-feeding. When I first adopted Scout, I used all of her daily kibble to try to create value in our relationship—to show her that good things come through me and that paying attention in different environments is rewarding.
Nowadays, our typical routines have become easy. There is no rush to teach or maintain new behaviors with food, so it was the perfect time to start feeding her from the box instead!
I wanted to be less reliant on food while out and about
An awesome side effect of box feeding is that it doesn’t let me use food as a crutch. This was especially true in the first few weeks when all of Scout’s food came from the box.
Not having kibble on walks shows how engaged my dog truly is with me as opposed to just paying attention for the promise of existential sustenance. This also pushes me to improve our other rewards—Jay Jack’s goal of teaching new things with food but rewarding with play as soon as possible has inspired me here—and our social (not transactional) relationship overall.
I still think hand feeding did some good things for us, and Scout will probably rarely just eat out of a bowl. With that said, I want to make sure we don’t rely on food the same as any other tool while out and about. Box feeding helped me commit to that!
How did we go about box feeding?
I learned about the proper box feeding process
First things first: I refreshed my memory on how to box feed. I’d learned about it from The Canine Paradigm podcast in early 2019, but I wanted to make sure I had all the details down before I started actually doing it with Scout. After re-watching Pat Stuart’s box feeding whiteboard deep dive on Patreon three times, I felt like I could get going without messing it up. (No, I’m not a perfectionist, why are you asking?)
My two biggest takeaways were:
The article is important even if you don’t want to do scentwork later on.
Make sure you have an air gap between each reward and the next distraction!
In the beginning, all of Scout’s food came from the box
I started box feeding with a cardboard box we had on hand and a small plastic measuring spoon as our article. We still use the measuring spoon—but a few days in, I ordered this sturdier box off of Amazon.
For the first four-ish weeks, Scout earned all of her food through the box. This helped make the picture really clear for her!
Our beginning sessions had a really high rate of reward where I just did my best to keep her head in the box. She often stared up at me hoping for food to come (I could tell just how much we’ve worked on eye contact, ha!) and it took a lot of waiting her out to get her head back in. Eventually she started catching on!
We added distractions little by little
Once she could keep her head in the box for at least three seconds with no food coming, we started adding in distractions. My goal was to keep them small enough that they didn’t scare her out of the box and slowly increase the intensity as she could handle it—just like we proof pretty much all of our behaviors!
Here are some of our favorite indoor distractions:
Knocking on our apartment’s front door
Banging on the patio door
Opening and closing doors (front, patio, interior closets)
Jingling leashes and collar tags
Running around in a circle
Shuffling our feet loudly on the floor
Dropping pots and pans
Knocking over furniture
Lifting up her paws
Patting / gently pressing on her back
And so on
We had a few hiccups along the way…
The process wasn’t totally linear. Here are a few ways I messed up:
In the beginning, I didn’t make the article indication clear enough for her. I just focused on “head in box” as our criteria—and it wasn’t a specific enough task for a nervous dog like Scout. Once we cleaned this up a few weeks in, she made major progress very quickly.
I added distractions too early. Excitement is cool, but I should have slowed down to build more stability and duration first.
Once, the door slammed shut very violently because of a gust of wind. This scared Scout out of the box, and she didn’t have much interest in it for a few days. We had to go back to easy basics to get her confident again.
Another time, the box shattered (its sides fell apart) while she was in it waiting for a reward. In a moment of (uncharacteristic 😉) quick thinking, I dumped the whole rest of the meal on top of the wooden pieces. She happily ate it and didn’t seem affected in the long run!
I hesitated to take our box work outside for the first few months… even though Scout is pretty confident handling distractions and pressure in the apartment. What we really need to work on is confidence in new environments, so we’ve started taking the box out and about more frequently!
We settled into box feeding here and there with only part of her food
Once Scout’s picture of the box was solid and she was able to handle more and more distractions, we added back in other training with her food too. As time has gone on, she gets most of her meals “for free” and we use box feeding as an occasional focus work exercise.
What results have we seen from box feeding?
There are so many confounding variables in life with our dogs that it can be really difficult to isolate how one specific training exercise or tool impacts the big picture.
With that said, Scout has definitely become braver and more independent in several ways over the past few months:
She shows a greater commitment to and stability in behaviors, especially duration stays.
Her alarm barking at noises in our apartment’s shared hallway has decreased.
She’s more clear-headed around other dogs, especially if she is in a command.
She was fairly confident jumping onto objects or crawling into small spaces before, but she’s significantly braver diving into underbrush or between furniture legs now.
Our go-to box feeding resources
Box feeding is simple to start—but there are a few important nuances it’s important to get right. Otherwise you can easily create problems (like resource guarding and noise sensitivity) instead of improving them.
I think the right resources can make all the difference!
Initial intro to the idea of box feeding
The Canine Paradigm Episode Four: Mysteries of the Box
This is where I first learned about box feeding. It was only Pat and Glenn’s fourth podcast episode, and they’ve expressed that they’d change some things if they could go back in time to make it clearer. With that said, it’s still a good introduction!
Deep dive into how to start box feeding
The Box Revisited on The Canine Paradigm Patreon
In this whiteboard video, Pat explains in detail how to start box feeding—and a few common mistakes to avoid.
The Box Q&A on The Canine Paradigm Patreon
This was a live question and answer session that you can watch back at any time where Pat addresses many details about the box.
The Box and Resource Guarding on The Canine Paradigm Patreon
Here Pat explains how he specifically uses box feeding to treat resource guarding in dogs.
Understanding how the box might work as meditation
Something to Bark About Episode 28: Pat Stuart
At about minute 74 in this podcast, Pat Stuart likens box feeding to meditation and talks about its benefits in more detail.
I’m happy we’ve explored the box feeding idea
Like anything in dog training, I don’t think box feeding is a magic bullet or a cure all—but I do think it was really worthwhile to try.
I plan to continue box feeding on occasion, upping the distractions and seeing how far we can go, especially in new environments. I think it’s been good for Scout!