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Hello Denise,
It’s important to find a food item that Elmo does like, in any situation. If he’s generally not a foodie, you’ll have to get a bit creative and test out some interesting (dog-safe) foods. I once had a client whose dog would only work for bits of watermelon! And another dog who was lucky enough to get raw beef (all the dogs in class wanted to be that woman’s dog!) Here’s a game to play to test out a variety of things.
Some dogs shut down/don’t eat when they are afraid or stressed, so another thing to check is that whatever is happening isn’t stressful. If he’s panting and flicking his tongue, those are signals that whatever is going on is difficult for him. Back it waaaayy up. I once worked with a dog (and a second handler) who had had a traumatic nail trim experience and we had to start the Dremel desensitization from about 30 FEET away! This poor dog would absolutely panic if he saw it any closer. So we started where he was comfortable and that turned out to be waaaaaayyyyyyy over there. Turn it on; feed treats. Turn it off; treats go away. Dremel happens, food happens. Dremel stops, food stops. It took us several days but we eventually were able to have him close enough to work through the other variables. It took us a couple of weeks to get to the first teeny tiny touch to a toenail. A week later, I’d done all the toenails. I wish I had video of that dog’s experience!