Frantic around food/treats - help!

[Rollaroundtheclock]

We adopted our second dog, a 19 week collie cross a week ago. We have an older dog who’s 2.5 and is also mix of two challenging breeds so we’re used to some challenging times with training. New pup was with his litter mates until now and we think being fed all together so a real battle for food at meal times. He is frantic when we bring food/treats out, paws up, barking, jumping etc.

We’ve been using meal times for short training sessions getting him to to sit/leave it and that way he’s getting some hand feeding. We finish with him getting the remainder in a snuffle mat. He is improving slowly and is starting to offer a sit when he wants something.

My confusion is around how we go about reinforcing other good behaviours whilst he’s a bit crazy around food. Other dog was very food motivated so used treats/praise but she was also very polite around food which made it easy. He gets lots of verbal praise when he does something we want but I worry it’s not enough.

I know he’s still settling and getting used to the routine/regular exercise and I need to remind myself that it took perseverance with older dog to get her where she is. Just in the relentless bitey phase and knackered and need some guidance!

I’d be giving him smaller hand fed meals and keeping the rest on me, so you’re firstly not bringing out the food as such, it’s always there and then whatever word you’re using to mark behaviour, use that and then the food in your pocket... but still not until he stops trying to snatch it.

Not with a leave command for other things, just, yeah... my hand is closing till you’re calmer.

We rescued our dog this year. She's our second rescue so not our first experience of rescue dogs.
She doesn't have issues like this but is very food motivated, like your older dog.
I'm not a fan of hand feeding all meals. I believe dogs should be left in peace to eat, split up from other resident dogs if this causes issues.
I think he is just adjusting and having being with his litter mates for so long he needs to learn that he doesn't have to compete for food.
Teach the "calm" command and reward with food. He collies are clever. He should get it.
Good luck!

How experienced are you with dogs? If you are very experienced, I would suggest clicker training- there is an incredibly thin line between right and wrong! So I don't believe it is for the novice dog owner even with 1:1 trainer.
Or use a toy as a reward, the success will depend on your dogs motivation!

Our older dog was a rescue we got at 1 and she hadn’t been socialised and very much hadn’t grown out of a lot of puppy behaviours (jumping/mouthing). She’s a husky cross so she is clever but was very much hard work. It was a steep learning curve but we now have a very mellow dog, well behaved in the house and great out and about. Our first dog as adults but our families always had rescues (all working breeds/mixes) and we had a collie cross as kids. We didn’t clicker train her as she was very noise sensitive and was really uncomfortable around it. So we aren’t novices but by no means super experienced either. We’ve always been around dogs but learnt so much with older dog as we trained her.

We do feed them separately and away from each other. Have done since day one. I think he is still adjusting and a puppy is very new to us as well! You can tell he’s clever and he has started to copy older dog. For example she sits on the door mat to have her lead on and he’s started doing the same thing. Thought it was a fluke first time as we hadn’t started with ‘sit’ but he’s done it every time since then.

I think we do probably need treats on us or some of his kibble throughout the day. Hopefully should make meal time less of an event for him!