Hand Feeding Your Dog

When you get home a young puppy or a new dog, there is a settling time, both you & your dog will take.

One of the highly recommended course of action, for naturally building your rapport with your young puppy or new dog, is hand feeding your dog, especially in the initial weeks after adoption. This of course is to be done for the initial stages of your relationship with your dog.

At first, it would be lovely if you hand feed the whole meal, and slowly reduce it from a whole meal to half a meal to once a day to once or twice a week. There is really no hard and fast rule to this. Hand feeding your dog, helps them understand that you are the source of food for them, you are to be trusted around their food and helps eliminate any future development of food aggression. This process also helps, having your hand's smell incorporated in their food reassuring the bond with you, them & their food. However, I strongly recommend you do get your puppy or new dog to get accustomed to eating on their own too. This will help them get adjusted in a kennel, at a friend's or pet sitter's place too while you are away, making them more confident and a little less dependent on anyone for their meal time. Happy meal times with your puppies forever!