Should You Use Food To Train Your Basset Hound?

If you’ve had your Basset Hound for any length of time or if you are familiar with the breed, you already know that motivating a Basset Hound can be tough. Their calm personalities and lack of motivation for most things physical make it extremely difficult to get them to do much of anything except lie there and wonder what you are jumping around about.

On occasion, you may run across a Basset Hound that is extremely motivated and easy to train. But for the most part, Bassets can be inattentive. As a rule, Bassets also do not like to take instruction. They are an independent dog that likes to think that everything they do is of their own volition. All of this can result in big problems when it comes to obedience training.

Whatever you do, don’t take inattentiveness as a sign that your dog is lacking in intelligence. Basset Hounds are an extremely intelligent breed and can learn a wide variety of obedience tasks and hunting skills. All you need to do is find out what motivates your dog, convince him that it was his own idea to become obedient, and you will be able to keep his attention and get him to train with you instead of wandering off for a nap.

So, the question arises; what best motivates a Basset Hound to train? As you can imagine, the motivating force can be as different as each dog’s personality, but one thing that tends to motivate all dogs is food. By rewarding your dog with tasty morsels during training sessions and for each deed well done, your Basset Hound will look forward to each training session and be eager to do all that you ask of him. This works much better than trying to coerce your dog through punishment. After all, your Basset will likely become tired of you and stop responding to your commands only after a short while if you don’t make things fun for him.

The key to training with food is rewarding your dog at the right time and using the right treat. Many people think that they can give their dog a bite or two of dog food after they have successfully completed a few tricks. But dog food does not excite a Basset Hound like other types of food so choose foods that are really a treat. You should also increase the delicacy of the treat right along with the trick’s difficulty. This will give your Basset even more motivation to do what you ask.

Timing is also extremely important. You should be sure to reward your Basset Hound when he knows what he is being rewarded for. This means that you will have to deliver the treat immediately at the end of a successful command. Do not move one step before you have rewarded your dog. To do this, you will likely have to use a pouch to keep the treats on your person and easily accessible.