I buy this brand: http://www.zooplus.de/shop/hunde/hu...3fTTyb4h_szbOeZcE1Y9r6qstj2jvEcXosaAl4u8P8HAQ I'm in Germany, so maybe you can't get the same one in the UK. Making it at home would give you more flexibility to find something your dog likes and without "meat and animal derivatives"! You could also use wet dog food with a bit of water to make a paste that you can squeeze out.
Snowie likes anything new. So for him, any treat is potentially high value provided it's novel. I've also noticed that really high value treats - like smelly dried tuna - lost its value after a few times. Funnily enough the idea of "supper" was motivating for him after our evening walk yesterday. I said, Do you want supper? And he quickly jumped into the car - this after really wanting to run off to sniff things and not wanting to get into the car.
Fish cubes work for my pups. They look expensive but 1Kg is a lot! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Challenge-...TF8&qid=1490789782&sr=8-1&keywords=Fish+cubes Bb
Same as @MF I have found what used to be high value (chicken, cheese, hot dog) lost value over time. So, I change it up a lot - our current craze is dried sardines (only other dogs can smell them so I'm safe).
Squeezy tubes of cheese or liver work with Holly. The nice thing is that we just squeeze it out and let her lick it off. We don't need to get it all over our hands.
Charlie likes Frankfurters, cheese, fish cubes are favourites here. For some reason Charlie does not like the Squeezy tube but does like Primula - weird Hattie loves any food x
Mocha will do anything for a tin of cat food. I just open and dump on the ground. I also open a corner of it and let her lick it when we practice heel. Fits nicely in the pocket. She loved dried lung, horse especially. It stinks way bad though and most dogs follow me around when I have it on my person. For me though the temperature gets her to be at my side. I warm up sausages, roast chicken and so forth and put it in a thermos.
I've been watching a training video and the trainer makes an excellent point. Some treats - like dried liver - are very high fat and must be used in moderation or pancreatitis could be a real danger. He recommends using a really high quality (but different from their normal) kibble. Jackpot = many treats one after the other. ...
If this is Ian Dunbar and ziwipeak - yeah, ok, but slight yawn. It's just freeze dried kibble. It didn't cut the mustard with Charlie as a teenager. I think it is perfectly possible, in theory, to train a dog with kibble. It's a LOT faster with king prawns though!
What makes something 'human food'? Highland diced venison from Waitrose is £13.34 a kg. Freeze dried venison in the form of ziwipeak is £25.72 a kg.
Human food is anything they may smell in a cafe, shop or restaurant or on a coffee table. Their owners can't see what they are up to so the dogs need to be reliable round all food at any height.
That's very old fashioned - I'm very disappointed that's what guide dog trainers think. Although I doubt it is, probably just a vast organisation failing to keep its guidance up to date.
We have tried various "High Value" treats, but I think Tilly and Cooper react about the same to the small dog biscuits. They both really like the Mother Hubbard's assorted dog biscuits, and will do about anything for them. Last night I needed to give Tilly some benadryl, and I put the pills in small pieces of string cheese. Tilly just gobbled them down, but I gave some of the same cheese to Cooper (can't treat one and not the other) and she had to carry it away and inspect it before she would eat it. She has had string cheese many times before, but usually it is when I peal it off the stick, not cut it into chunks. Cooper is also a little suspicious of sliced salami, I used it initially in whistle training, but I think she is just as happy with biscuits.
I've just got some Arden Grange mini adult kibble. Tiny biscuits so a jackpot can be a stream of them. The dogs love them.
I once bought Orijen cat pellets - all fish. Bought them for treats. (They didn't have dog pellets in the shop.) What a pain!!! They were too tiny. I didn't consider the streaming aspect though; I used them on walks. I think I gave Snowie more of them than had they been dog pellets cos it was easier to take out a handful. And he often dropped a lot of them. And they stunk! And my hand got gooey cos he'd lick them off cos they were too tiny. Made them extra stinky!