If you feed your dog kibble then ditching the dish is relatively easy – kibble is dry, usually small pieces and not messy!
If you feed raw or wet food, then you need to be a bit more creative in how you use this in training, but it is possible.
You can blend the raw or wet food with some bio yoghurt (with a bonus of being good for digestion!) to make it a runnier and then use infant’s weaning pouches to delivery the food into your dog’s mouth. You can use infant’s silicone weaning spoons to deliver the food if you’re playing a game like ‘aeroplane feeding’. Using a silicone spoon means that your dog’s teeth are not likely to be damaged.
You could roll the food into small balls, perhaps mixed with egg to bind, and then freeze and use in games where you are throwing the food.
You can dehydrate your own meat and veg. It’s best to use low fat meat like poultry, beef or liver. To make the meat safe from pathogens it’s recommended to put in the oven at 150C for 10 mins after dehydrating. You can get dehydrators on Amazon from around £30 upwards. The cheaper ones tend to have plastic trays which are not as durable whereas the more expensive models have stainless steel trays.
You can dehydrate wet/raw food – mix with some water and blend, then pipe small amounts onto parchment to make bite sized treats.
You can use freeze-dried meat (True Instincts is one brand) which has the advantage of being dry and therefore less messy. Both dehydrated and freeze dried are good for games where you are throwing the food.
So, with a bit of thought, feeding raw/wet food need not be a barrier to ‘Ditching the Dish’.