treats only from left hand

I've heard about a dog who is taught to take treats only from the left hand of his owner. He never takes treats from the right hand! I think this is a good idea because this way he won't eat anything from strangers - most people are right-handed. What do you think about this? Maybe your dogs do this too? I'd like to teach my little dog to do this, but he loves his treats too much to give up on some of them.

 

Never thought about this. I am a lefty and I probably hand from my left. I'll have to actually pay attention and see if they will take from the right.

 

I've never heard of this. I would love to train my littler Pomeranian to do that, but I'm not so sure he would pass up a treat even if it came from the wrong hand. He does love his treats! Where did you hear this from? I'd like to read up on it.

 

Unfortunately I haven't read about it anywhere, so I can't recommend you any books. It was my friend's idea. Now I'm pretty sure he is the only one owner who managed to train his dog to do this. I'd love to train my dog too, but Homer is too naughty . I was hoping that maybe some of you heard about it or something like it and could give me some tips.

 

I have heard of this briefly before, but I'm not sure if I believe it. My boys are perfectly fine taking treats from any hand, foot, floor you name it, it doesn't matter. They know they are being rewarded, so they are fine with anyway I choice to hand it over. I'm sure people who are very commanding with their pets might use this technique to instill control in their dogs. We are happy go lucky here, so just hand over the treats is what my boys say.

 

I've never heard about it either. That seems like an interesting idea. I'm not sure I would ever actually bother with training them that way, though.

 

So after a good long trial my dogs dont care what hand the treat comes from. Being a lefty I hand with the right so I switched and started handing from the left. My husband also hands from the right, as do the kids.

 

Wow! That is a really interesting idea. Of course, I'm a righty and my husband is a lefty so it probably wouldn't work out here.

 

An interesting method to prevent others from feeding or injuring our dogs. Mishka has no problem with stranger danger where we live but I can see the benefit to teach a new dog this method.

 

Would that actually work though? I would think that would be a really hard thing to train. Dogs are so food motivated, I think they would take it anyway. Or the person could just throw it on the ground. I don't know many dogs that wouldn't pick it up.

 

This is totally my dog. I just figured out that she will not take a treat from the right hand (I have tossed the treat to her for years) but she takes it from the left hand on her own every time. She is a Border Collie-Dalmatian mix. We have not trained her this way but she lives by this order in her life. I googled the topic and found all of you. When she was a puppy we had a red and blue ball. She would only catch a blue ball, letting the red one drop to the ground every time. Border collies are a bit OCD.

 

Yep. Border collies can be a bit fussy. Or should I say a bit neurotic.

 

This is actually true and why I was looking up info or help on it as well for my new puppy. I used to work for PetSmart and went to give a customers dog a treat from my right hand as I am righthanded, and he would not take it. The owners then told me they trained him to only take treats from the left hand. It was really cool and with my new puppy I have I want to start training and enforcing this so that she is not so comfortable with taking treats from strangers. I just ordered a clicker, so may try to start training her with this method.

 

Please keep us posted! I'd love to train my Homer too but I have no idea how to do it. He loves food, he eats everything. Any tips?

 

I think it's the same trick as making sure your dog only eats from his food bowl. I recall one of my mother's dogs do the same thing.

Even if you throw a piece of bread in front of him, he won't eat it until it's on his food bowl. I think my brother was the one who taught him this because there were stories around the neighborhood that some people were giving dogs breads with needles inside them.

 

Yes, I think it's pretty much the same. How did your brother managed to teach him this? My Homer eats everything from everywhere and it makes me worry because I heard about some stupid, terrible people who leave poisoned food in our park

 

Our dog will definitely not care if it is from the left or right hand. But good thing that he will not immediately eat or receive foods from strangers.