Recommendations for healthy treats - Page 2

Hired exactly. People make training so complicated. Then wonder why ther dogs are shit. (Not aimed at anyone here). If you work your dog on a high reward like liver, chicken ect I bet when you have none to offer the dog won't work for a lesser reward. It makes total sense to have a dog work for his everyday food and his expectations are hay I'm working for dinner. Not desert.

Blade, I am a huge believer in what I call existential training. We all work to live, so can a dog. I see no reason why I need to offer anything other then food to achieve any training goals.
Like I said, my puppy is very food motivated, much more so then toy, so, I use that motivation to assist with my training. As soon as its done being 100 degrees outside, I will also use that same food to start tracking him.
To me and my dog, higher value treats do not exist, his dry dog food is his treat and he is treated 3 times a day when I feed him and we train

I'm the same hired. My dog's value on training is he is full. This is the NEPOPO system. Which iv been using for long time now. Its the system that brings alot of dogs to the world's wher obidence has to be spot on and movement has to be correct. But you will still have people saying o no I couldn't do that it cruel. I'll train the dog with chicken wings 😂 and even if he doesn't do what I ask I'm still going to give him that amazing reward. If my dog's decides not to work for ther dinner guess what they get no dinner. A few day later guess what happens the dog clicks. I'm hungry I need to do something to get rid of this feeling. The frist piece of interest in me I feed the dog 3 quarters of his food and play with him. And from then on dinner is served in a working reward system. Full belly happy dog.

Blade, Bart Bellon's training system is great and used by most top trainers, with perhaps a few twists. NEPOPO is something I have also used since its inception and it has worked great for me.
I will admit that it works better on dogs with higher prey drive that love toys, but, I have used it on dogs with not as high prey and with a few adjustments, it works well there too.
My current puppy, per my own request, does not have very high prey drive, he will play with a toy when he is presented with one, but, he is not a maniac about it. He does love his food though and I am using that when training...so far, he is doing great and we just started his training last week.
Again, what others choose to give their dogs as a reward for training is their business, but, for me, I see no reason to use anything other then food.

What is your requirement for a "Training Treat"?

I use food for training a lot...In my world I Teach...Train...and Proof...

A lot of people will Teach with Food but I use Food all the time for All stages...At the end of the session I will reward with a Toy...

Whether it's training in Obedience or Tracking I want a Food Reward that is High Value and can be eaten quickly so as the concentration of the dog for the action can be continued without interruption...I use Chicken Hot Dogs and for Obedience I don't cut the reward up...I let the dog locate it...In tracking I break pieces of Hot Dog as I lay a track...I can then change the amount used and the smell can be fresh...

As a trial comes about I will decrease the amount of food used but after the trail I will go back to using more food again...therefore keeping the dog energized to work...

I always try to keep a dog Balanced in their work and life...

~Bob~

For obedience, once the dog "gets" a basic behavior, I always randomize the value of the reward, whether it's just kibble, some Bill Jack, a piece of deer jerky, hotdog, or a piece of leftover steak, whatever. The point is I want to establish high reward value for behavior while keeping it random so the dog doesn't know whether, say, kibble or steak is coming. I don't do this with tracking though. I want the dog to be methodical and "calm", so to speak, on a track, so I don't want to use an extremely high value reward, like a piece of left over steak, which could encourage the dog to forge ahead and blow past foot steps in search or the next piece of food.

It sounds to me if you need to change your food for obidence your dog is lacking drive, motivation your dog definitely doesn't understand what he is working for. There has to be a consequence for losing motivation and its not changing food at each position. If its drive its lacking well then you have another problem. That is something you need to deal with personally.

Smoking Joe, I use nuts and cut up cheese besides cooked liver. I also reward with a ball or a tug.

Hired Dog, I think it’s a great idea to use dog food for training. Unfortunately I’m not able to do it with my dogs. One of my dogs is on raw diet which makes it messy, to say the least. The other dog is on kibble but she has EPI so her food needs to be mixed with pancreas’s supplements and water. Then it has to sit for about 20 minutes and becomes a goo. Again, messy. Treating with dog food isn’t practical for me. But thanks for sharing your knowledge!

There are distinct advantages to using regular kibble as 'the' training treat. You won't upset the dog's digestion; and you can take it out of the main mealtime allocation and keep track, thus ensuring you don't overfeed by using an unquantifiable amount of treats on top of the daily amount of food. No danger of making dog fat !

That is fine; until ... like Crazystyna says, sometimes a dog's regular diet will not allow this. Then you have to have other ideas in reserve. When you are training a new puppy who has been brought up to know nothing else, often the usual food works well and you never have to do anything different; but spare a thought for others trying to train with older dogs / rescue dogs / dogs who happen to be just not 'foodies' - sometimes it turns out you need other tricks in the bag. Some dogs respond well enough to 'regular' treats (whatever you use); but sometimes they don't. Or maybe sometimes dogs make a special effort to get something right for you and it is then not such a bad idea to give them a boost of higher value, rather than just 'more of the same', as an enhanced reward. So in those circumstances its handy to have a supply of something additional.

There are distinct advantages to using regular kibble as 'the' training treat. You won't upset the dog's digestion; and you can take it out of the main mealtime allocation and keep track, thus ensuring you don't overfeed by using an unquantifiable amount of treats on top of the daily amount of food. No danger of making dog fat ! That is fine; until ... like Crazystyna says, sometimes a dog's regular diet will not allow this. Then you have to have other ideas in reserve. When you are training a new puppy who has been brought up to know nothing else, often the usual food works well and you never have to do anything different; but spare a thought for others trying to train with older dogs / rescue dogs / dogs who happen to be just not 'foodies' - sometimes it turns out you need other tricks in the bag. Some dogs respond well enough to 'regular' treats (whatever you use); but sometimes they don't. Or maybe sometimes dogs make a special effort to get something right for you and it is then not such a bad idea to give them a boost of higher value, rather than just 'more of the same', as an enhanced reward. So in those circumstances I always believe it's handy to have a supply of something additional.