Our 9.5 month lab (Gary) has pretty good recall. He will generally come running full speed most of the time (even when he's playing with other dogs), and will only hesitate a little if he's into sniffing something really good. However I feel like there is room for another level of premium reward to reinforce things a little stronger and to have better recall when he's smelling something very interesting to him. And just to make things a little more unpredictable so it's not so easy for him to weigh the cost/benefit of the recall . Currently we (wife and I) use 3 levels of rewards in our pouch: lowest: kibble middle: Zuke's minis or similar treat from the store high: chopped up grilled chicken breast or steak strips (bought pre-made from grocery store, not homemade) Generally we give him the high rewards for most recalls but are slipping in the occasional low/middle reward, and sometimes no reward at all. Treat weaning is another topic I have questions about but save that for another discussion . Because my wife is a vegetarian and does most of the cooking, we never have fresh roast chicken or beef or anything tasty like that to use as a special bonus treat. I'm also concerned about the high salt content when using something like chopped up hot dogs or cheese (also he had some hair-loss and skin issues as a young pup which seemed to vanish when we eliminated hot dogs/cheese as a training reward - may be total coincidence buy why risk it). Would love to hear any tips for good high-value rewards. Thanks!
We found some organic biscuit treats that we give to our 15 week old lab, Sam. I also still use the kibble. I break the biscuits into quarters. He’s happy t try o get anything, frankly.
Sardines, the greasy type, work very well and were suggested by the experts on this site Sometimes instead of a food reward I mix in a favorite toy she gets to chase or an exercise she really likes to reinforce that coming to me leads to a fun activity... plus of course I am always in the best of spirits when she comes to me, even if slightly delayed
We also reserve kibble as our lowest value treat and use Zukes minis or Stella and Chewy dehydrated meal mixers as a middle value treats. After trying various treats (cheese, hot dogs, roast chicken) we have found raw dehydrated beef lung to be very high value for our lab. Another bonus is that it doesn’t have to be refrigerated so easy to keep on hand without refrigeration or spoiling. The only downside is some brands offer larger pieces that can be hard to break.
