Leaving Food to Alert

Bo works for all his food. He either works for it through food puzzles and Kongs or through training and alerting. He never gets his food served to him in a bowl. We began feeding Bo like this around the time he was 11 weeks old, so it's all he knows. Thanks to training from Helen, Bo does not resource guard. In fact, when we go near him when he is eating he drops/leaves the Kong and looks at us. He knows when we approach him while he is eating or chewing a bone, yummy food drops from the sky. Not always but a lot of the time.

We do scent training with Bo when he is eating, so he can practice leaving his peanut butter and kibble filled Kong to alert. When I started this training, Bo was younger and he didn't consistently leave his food to alert. As an older dog, he is demonstrating consistency in alerting on a scent sample when he is in the middle of eating,

Today, while he was in his crate eating, I put a low scent sample on my body. It was only a matter of seconds before he smelled the low and came over to let me know. I treated him wildly for his alert. When I gave him the 'all set' command, after treating him, he fetched his Kong and finished eating it in the hallway.