Feeding your Dragon...

So there's hope for Rex.  But is there hope for us, his broken and terrified humans?  We have to start by reorganizing our home environment.  The trainer laid out the plan...it includes completely unlearning everything we learned with Rex's previous trainer, an absurd amount of human food treats, an one other little detail...feeding him exclusively by hand?!?

"One of the worst things you can do for your dog is to feed him from a bowl, twice a day, at the exact same times everyday."  My eyes widened in disbelief.  I had long measured my daily good mom/bad mom quotient by, in part, my ability to feed my dogs at predictable times, from bowls (didn't think about that bowl part much to be honest...).  While I furrowed my brow, lips purssed in the "w" shape for "Whaaaattt???", he explained.  In Rex's new world, nothing is free.  Rex should have to work for every single bite of food, and everyone and everything should control access to food but Rex.  This means hand-feeding, feeding through training rewards, and feeding through food puzzles only.  Okay, I get the logic.  But a 100lb dog needs a lot of little pieces of food per day...and that's a lot of drool to contend with.

At first Rex was not interested in being hand fed his kibble.  He snubbed me several times, which I was warned about.  Appearantly in order to eat from my hand, Rex has to accept that he's not in charge.  After one day and a grumbly tummy, he broke down.  My hubby and I quickly realized the need to invest in rubber gloves for feeding...the drool is unimaginable.

The other change in our home circumstance was that all toys and bones are 'up', and Rex only gets to play with a tennis ball or chew a bone when I give it to him.  Before he tires of the toy or bone, I am to take it away.  For your average dog this may not be a big deal, but Rex has a psychotic obsession with tennis balls.  When he has one in his mouth you can almost hear him saying,"my precious..." a la Lord of the Rings.  We started out having the tennis balls and bones on the top shelf of a book shelf, but having his 'precious' in sight but unreachable proved to be doggy torture of the highest order.  So now they all reside in a little lock box...and WOW.  Rex is suddenly listening much better to our verbal commands in the house, and does so with less protest.  This has been the most powerful change we've made so far, although it's really hard to take his precious away after we play, due to the well documented ability of dogs to be super duper cute when they want something that you have.

Next on the agenda?  Rex's new protocol required us to put away the prong collar and clip on the harness...but walks are a little trying.  I don't know how to keep him from walking out in front of me without correcting him, and I'm having a heck of a time getting treats through his muzzle on our walks.  No to mention, we're now charged with finding a "high value treat?, ostensibly one that Rex prefers to biting people...