Articles

Training With Treats

By Sandy Kamen Wisniewski
Posted October 04, 2009

Training your dog with praise alone was a common practice as little as ten years ago. The thoughts were that a dog should listen to you and not need anything like treats to reinforce good behavior. To further that thinking a theory was that if you train with treats dogs won't do anything for you if you don't have any treats. What we have found is that these general ideas are incorrect.

Working on training your dog with treats actually works to your advantage for many reasons. Dogs will perform quicker and with less need for encouragement if treats are involved. With repetition over time a dog will perform what you want and not always need a treat. It does eventually become a habit if the owner practices regularly and consistently.

Sandy Kamen Wisniewski, trainer for Compassionate dog training said."I like to use this analogy in regards to treat training. If you were to be asked to do a task for free and then you were asked later to do the task for money which time would you work harder and with more enthusiasm? Likely you'd do a better job if you were rewarded with cash. To a dog treats are cash and most dogs love treats,"

When using a lot of treats in a given day be sure to cut back on meals so that your dog doesn't gain weight during training. There are also low fat training options that may work like Cheerios, carrot bits or skinless chicken pieces.