Giving and Taking Away: Rethinking Food Tubes
It may have begun with the milk bowl.
When I eat popcorn, I dip each piece in milk before I eat it. And as long as I’ve had dogs, I’ve shared the leftover milk with them after I’m done. I hold the bowl in front of one dog while the other waits, then, before Dog 1 has time to finish the milk, I pull it away and offer some to Dog 2. And on to Dog 3 when I had that many. I try to divide it up fairly, with each dog getting a portion adjusted for their size.
I’ve done the same when there was a cooking pan with safe food residue to lick out. Let one dog lick for a while, then pull it away and offer it to the next dog.
I have also used food tubes and spray cheese with my dogs a lot during training and conditioning. I squeeze out a swallow for the dog, then pull the container away. I’ve done the same when I’ve tried commercial squeeze tube and lickable products.
And early in my training journey, I learned to dole out multiple treats from one hand, setting the rate of reinforcement and holding some treats back according to my choice.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Do you think the removal of the thing they are currently eating—food that might be right there flowing into their mouth—is fun for a dog? Might it be . . . aversive?
Why Did I Start Reconsidering Food Tubes?
When Kate Woods of Train and Simple Dog Behaviour mentioned in a course the aversive nature of removing the bulk of something a dog was eating mid-slurp, it wasn’t the first time I’d heard this. But it was the first time I paid attention.
Credit where credit is due. Years ago, in one of Susan Garrett’s books or videos, she instructed us not to hold a handful of treats in the same hand we used to dole them out with. She pointed out that at the same time we were giving the dog one treat, we were pulling 15 away from them. I didn’t heed Susan Garrett’s advice, which was unusual for me. I sometimes still carried multiple treats in my treating hand.
I noticed recently how adept Lewis has gotten at forcing his nose into my hand that’s closed around the group of treats to try to get them all at once. I saw this as an annoying dog behavior, but really, who was being annoying?
Is Punishment Happening When We Pull Food Away?
An event can be aversive without a decrease in behavior happening as a result, or there can be a decrease that is hard to perceive. So even trainers who seek to make training a joyful experience for their dog and to use the least coercive methods possible may not catch it.
For instance, every one of my dogs has loved canned cat food. Throwing a food tube full of it was a tremendous reinforcer when I used to play agility with Summer and Zani. I saw it enhance their love of the game; it was such a difference from the other moderate-to-high-value food I had used. So, in that increase in joy and performance, how would I notice a downside of my pulling the food away mid-swallow? The “net joy” (total joy minus the effects of my pulling the tube away) was still greater than the gross joy of whatever good treats I had given them before.
Keep in mind that pulling food away contingently on an undesired behavior is negative punishment, if that behavior decreases. It’s the same move! The difference is that in most dogs, it’s hard to see a decrease in “treat eating” or some micro-behavior that’s involved in eating.
In the agility scenario, I didn’t see a punished behavior because the value of the food was so massive. But it didn’t mean this was all perfect and nice for the dog.
There was one clue. There are permanent teeth marks on the threads of the food tubes from where my dogs would try to grab them as I pulled them away. I remember what it felt like when they did that, but I didn’t think about it empathetically. I just pulled it away. “Hey, time for the other dog to run—you’ll get some more later!”
Hey, Choice and Control People!
We do so many things to control our dogs and make choices for them. Some are necessary for their survival and well-being. Some are for our own convenience. Some are—thoughtless? Out of habit?
I love that people are thinking about things like degrees of freedom and opt-out stations with the goal of making training and behavior change the least coercive they can be. And oh, yes, positive reinforcement training can be coercive.
Using a high-value food tube for husbandry with no opt-out setup—that’s the essence of R+ coercion. (And yes, I’ve done that plenty.) Even with an opt-out contingency it’s not great if we are still pulling the food away when we want them to stop.
We usually use food tubes to deliver very high-value food. Something the dog really, really wants. Then we pull it away while food is still flowing into their mouth or available to their tongues. So let’s put “getting to eat without a person jerking the yummy thing back” on our lists of how to give dogs more agency in their lives.
OMG Classical Conditioning
Agility was the primary activity in which I used food tubes. But I also used it for classical conditioning in husbandry and to help dogs get through scary situations. Classical conditioning is tricky; so many things can sneak in to ruin the pairing. The function of the food is to change the dog’s emotional response. Why would I want to tag each bite of food with a little “Dammit, why can’t I have the rest!” for the dog at the end?
How Can We Give Our Dogs Soft or Liquid Treats?
We can set up a bowl or can of soft food well out of reach of the dog. Then we can use a spoon or a rubber or silicone spatula to give the dog a bite and let them finish the whole bite. Or dump or spray soft food onto a target for the dog to lick off.
“Well out of reach of the dog” relates to what most of us know experientially. For instance, if we’re training a dog not to take food that is on the ground, we start our training with the food a distance away from the dog and gradually work it closer. There is also good evidence in human research that proximity and visibility are linked with the likelihood that we will eat something (Wadhera & Capaldi-Phillips, 2014). There is reason to think this could carry over to other mammals. For dogs, we would weigh the effects of olfactory stimuli, as well.
For something like a vet visit, you can use preloaded syringes of food (no needles!).
I think the frustration level for the dog may vary between these food delivery methods. For example, see the photos below, which are roughly at the same scale. Spray cheese is controlled by a valve, and if you let the dog lick up all they can from the small nozzle after the valve closes, perhaps that’s less frustrating that pulling away the open food tube with its larger opening.
I’ll probably keep a food tube. There may be a circumstance where it is so uniquely helpful that I’ll be willing to inflict the frustration of pulling it away from my dog. But for now, I’m learning to use a spoon for soft food, and cleaning up my act with treats I deliver by hand.
But Doling Treats Out Piece by Piece is Controlling, Too!
Yep! We control our dogs all the time. Traditional R+ training is controlling, particularly when the dog has only one way to access the reinforcer. So why would we want to make it even more controlled? We already put contingencies on when a dog gets a treat; that’s the essence of building behavior well. So why add another layer of control that says, “I’m going to give you this treat but not let you finish it.”
I have long been troubled by food toys that merely slow dogs’ eating down. Would dogs choose that? Some toys seem fun, others, not so much. It’s odd that I questioned the kindness of drawing out a dog’s eating session, but didn’t seriously consider the practice of interrupting it after every bite. But these two issues are connected. In both cases, we are putting contingencies about how (and how fast) the dog eats.
Will I Take Down My Old Posts?
I’ve been using food tubes and spray cheese for delivering food on and off for years. I have several posts about them, and I even provide recipes.
I’m putting a caveat at the beginning of each post and keeping the posts up. I don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good. I have a wide audience. It’s still hard to get people to use good food, or food at all, when training. I can’t judge the frustration factor for individual dogs out there, but I’m guessing that most would prefer getting some good food, overly controlled by the human, than none.
Is This Too Trivial for a Whole Post?
There are huge welfare considerations for dogs and all animals, domesticated and wild. Dog training advice on social media has gotten worse when I didn’t think it could, with showy, cruel trainers getting tons of traction. But thinking about how the small things work helps me conceptually with the bigger things. And this issue gives me, and perhaps others, a way to make our dogs’ lives a little sweeter.
Epilogue
The last time I ate popcorn, I grabbed another bowl and poured part of the leftover milk into it so each dog had their own bowl. They didn’t thank me or anything, but each could drink all their milk and lick out their own bowl as thoroughly as they pleased. It gave me joy to see them taking their time, getting all the good stuff.
References
Wadhera, D., & Capaldi-Phillips, E. D. (2014). A review of visual cues associated with food on food acceptance and consumption. Eating behaviors, 15(1), 132-143.
Copyright 2026 Eileen Anderson
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