Do you want to know a training secret? Don’t feed your dog from a bowl! Instead, use your dog’s meals for training and you will see a huge boost in your results! Why? Simple. Every dog is motivated by a hierarchy of needs: food, toys, praise, and so on. Sure, some dogs see food lower on the list than toys, but since every dog needs food to survive, every dog can benefit from using mealtime as training time.
The benefits of using mealtime as training time can be even more important to those of us who have small dogs as they will quickly gain weight if we feed meals and give treats during training sessions.
BUT what if I feed raw pet food? Or what if my dog doesn’t get excited for kibble?
Stella & Chewys® has the answer. Recently, Stella & Chewys® introduced Meal Mixers. Meal Mixers are a part of their freeze dried line of dog foods, and come in convenient, bite-size pieces. They are available in four protein options (Stella’s Super Beef, Chewy’s Chicken, Tantalizing Turkey, and Savory Salmon & Cod) which is helpful if you have a picky dog or a dog with food sensitivities. The Meal Mixers are also available in three sizes (3.5 oz, 9 oz, 18 oz). Personally, I buy the biggest bag, but regardless of what size you prefer they are all resealable bags and ready to feed right out of the bag! Every bag also comes with its own scoop for easy measuring. Each bag of Stella & Chewys® Meal Mixers is packed full of nutrition. Their freeze dried food is every bit as healthy as a raw pet food diet (in fact, part of their product line includes raw pet food).
I hand-feed all of my dogs every single meal for at least the first year of their lives. I love how quickly we build our relationship and the fast progress we make on training due to my use of their meals. And it’s easy! Think about it…you already use treats to train a “sit”, “down”, “stay”, and so on…why not use their meals for that training?
My initial concern about using mealtime for training time was nutritional. Would my dog get balanced nutrition? With Stella & Chewys® Meal Mixers, that is not a concern at all! Meal Mixers include premium ingredients packed with 95% nutrient-rich meat, organs, and bone. The Meal Mixers also include organic fruits, vegetables, probiotics, and antioxidants. They are high protein, high fat, grain-free, balanced nutrition! They also do not contain any fillers, artificial preservatives, or colorings!
As an extra food safety measure, Stella & Chewys® uses a test and hold process. This means a third party, independent lab analysis is conducted on each batch of food before it leaves their Wisconsin-based manufacturing facility. The results for every batch is posted on the Stella & Chewys® website for anyone to see. Stella & Chewys® wants you to know that your dog’s food is safe.
With Stella & Chewys® Meal Mixers, I am able to train my dogs for every meal with the same quality of food as a raw pet food diet. I can’t stress enough how much using mealtime as training time has made a difference in my dogs’ training progress. However, if you don’t feel like training for a meal, Stella & Chewys® Meal Mixers are an easy way to add an extra boost of raw food nutrition to a pets’ existing diet. Just scoop, mix and serve.
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Interested in trying Stella & Chewys® Meal Mixers? Check out their Store Locator to find a store near you! If you live in a rural area (like I do), and there is not a store near you, Stella & Chewys® Meal Mixers can also be ordered on Amazon.com
Now through October 2nd, enter to win an assortment of Stella & Chewys® products valued at $75! There will be 25 lucky winners!!!
Thanks for such an informative review!
I use primarily use freeze dried nuggets for Chester and Gretel’s treats and one of the brands I use is Stella and Chewys. I’m forgetting the training part though 🙂 I am back to making Gretel sit for her treats because she about rips your finger off if you don’t. Her manners are terrible! I need to get back to at least teaching them basic commands like sit and stay when I give them their treats.
Mauja and Atka won’t work for kibble. They’ll avoid eating for days on end if they have to show effort. I didn’t think of trying with Stella & Chewy’s (mostly because I don’t want touch it!), but I’m pretty positive they would work for it 🙂
That’s why I like the Freeze Dried…same yum factor, less yuck factor 😉
I also use meal time to train my dogs. It works wonders! And, I do feed raw so all my dogs know how to eat from a spoon. But, I’ve been hearing about freeze dried raw food recently and would really like to try it. I see you can just feed it as is, but can you also add water to it?
You can absolutely add water to your freeze dried food, Mary. I choose not to since I use the freeze dried as training treats. I just make sure my dogs get plenty of water during and after any training session with freeze dried food.
What a great idea to use meal time as training time so we don’t overfeed our dogs when rewarding them with food when working on training skills. My girls would be quite motivated to listen and learn if we did this. I am going to start doing this with a little bit of their meal to work on training before putting down their bowls with the remainder of their meal.
This is a great idea to use meal time for training, I can see how it boosts your relationship with your dog. We saw this in action at BlogPaws when our roommate fed her dog by hand to help her do her physical therapy because of surgery. We thought it very clever at the time, but for now I really like my food in a bowl! Love Dolly
Chilly would love Savory Salmon and Cod meal mixers 🙂
Mr. N loves freeze dried food for treats. My only qualm is there’s always crumbles at the bottom.
Great idea Kama. I know before we would go to agility I would only feed Charlie half of his dinner. Enough to not chomp my fingers off but not enough to be unmotivated! I will definitely do this next time!
Stella & CHewy’s makes it so much easier to feed the boys raw. I can’t get used to adding actual raw meat to their food. ☺
My dogs are currently loving the meal mixers!
Using part of your dog’s meal as training treats is a great idea! I imagine that it would be a lot easier to keep track of how much your dog has eaten that day with that method. The Stella & Chewy’s Meal Mixers sound a like a great way to get some raw food into a dog’s diet! 🙂
Thanks Robin! As a matter of fact, my cats love freeze dried too, so I use it to train them as well! That is how I trained my cat, Evie, to be a professional model.
What a fantastic idea, and so timely! I feel bad about using semi-moist treats full of weird ingredients, and they’re so unlike real food – they work, but the freeze-dried bites from Stella & Chewy’s look so much better. Glad they’re on Amazon!
Even though we are kitties, we’d love to win some Stella & Chewy’s for our woofie cousin, Bandit. We think he’d eat any flavor!
My kitties love Stella & Chewy’s freeze dried as treats, so you might like them yourselves!
Sundog and Barney would love all of them, but I think they would especially love the Super Beef.
We train at every meal. Sometimes just a very short review of something and sometimes something quite more than that. But there is always at least some training. That’s where Sundog and Barney got their start line stays. 🙂
I haven’t been visiting my fav blogs of late, but just had to stop and take a moment to read your post, and am so glad I did. I am starting to clicker train my cats and one of the things the trainer said to me when she met my crew the first time is ‘You don’t feed them from your hand, do you?’ and I said no, and that I didn’t feed treats typically and when I did, I used the ‘chumming for cats’ style of tossing treats across the floor and watching them chase after them, hahameow! It was hard to find a treat that they all loved and Stella & Chewy’s freeze dried dinners (Duck Duck Goose and Chick Chick Chicken) are winners! As you said, the are easy to travel with, don’t need refrigeration and I love the ingredients as I stay away from things with plant material in them for my cats! They are all now sitting pretty for the treats and I wish I had known years ago how this style of feeding really does strengthen the bond and I don’t leave food out free choice any longer and am feeding more in the style you recommend and will increase that now!