Just wondering what everyone uses for treats during training? I've only used Coopers kibble so far and was thinking of making it more interesting.
Dried spratts,venison sausages, millies wolfheart heart salmon training treats small bits of cheese, sardines,dried liver. Normal kibble, bits of wild boar can't think of anything else
Oh wow! What a question! I guess the key is just to introduce one thing at a time and go easy, just in case it causes a runny bum. And use just small treats - break stuff up and use a piece half the size of your little finger nail to start with! Simple things like tiny cubes of chicken/beef/ham are on option. And Cheese Bit of hot dog sausage are really handy and cheap too. There are quite a few suggestions in the recipe section too. As far as commercial treats are concerned, that is personal choice, but a lot of them are high fat and full of additives. My personal choice are the MisFits from the supermarket - quite soft and can easily be broken up.
Young puppies working on the basics don't really need more than kibble. They are so pouncy, bouncy everything is fun anyway. The only reason to use high value stuff is to training 'leave it' (e.g. use the high value thing as the thing they are leaving and as the reward). As you get out and about, the puppy becomes more independent and so the distractions build then up the treat value significantly. But don't do it just for the sake of it, match your treat to the level of distractions. I think real meat is the thing - juicy (small!) chunks of real meat.
Stinky fish (tuna, salmon, sardines) for high distractions (off-lead, obedience class etc). Cubed chicken/steak/sausages/liver etc for everything else. But at 6 months most "treats" are just from her daily kibble ration, e.g. her daily leash walks are solely rewarded with kibble. Each dog will value different treats differently - Xena barely reacts to cocktail sausages...that made for a difficult obedience class
Hi Diane, As you can see ,there's loads of stuff you can use ,just remember to calculate your treats into your daily food allowance so you don't over feed your puppy .....my poor lad goes into despair if he doesn't get something put down into his bowl at meal times....that can mean half a dozen paltry kibble pieces at times ....well you know what I mean , a teeny tiny amount!
