A Guide To Training Treats
While there are many ways to reinforce desired behavior from your dog when training them, one of the most common and effective means to do so is through using food rewards. But, if you’re just starting out on your training journey, it may be a little bit confusing to figure out how and what to use as a reward for your dog. What kind of food should you give your dog? How big should the reward be? How are you supposed to use food when you’re out and about in the world with your dog?
Treat Values Overview
The very first thing you’ll want to know about using food to train your dog is to understand treat values, and when to use different values of food to reinforce behavior from your dog. Before diving in, it’s important to know that each and every dog is an individual, so their exact preferences can vary widely when it comes to what they find higher value vs. lower value. What could be a low-value food for one dog, could be another dog’s highest-value food. So, even though we will cover some common examples of different values of treats here, these are general guides to help give you ideas to experiment with and find what your specific dog’s “tier system” is.
Common “Low Value” Treats
Kibble
Plain Cheerios
Dry Biscuits or Crunchy Treats (Think “Milkbones”)
Dog-Safe Fruits and Veggies
Common “Medium Value” Treats
Store-Bought “Training Treats”
Store-Bought Jerky Treats
Store-Bought Freeze Dried Treats
Plain Yogurt/Peanut Butter
Common “High Value” Treats
Real Meats (Chicken, Ground Beef, Sausage, etc)
Cheeses
Hot Dogs/Deli Meat
Fish (Sardines, Salmon, etc)
Should I Just Always Use High Value Treats?
Once you’ve spent some time figuring out which treats are low-value, medium-value, and high-value for your dog, you’re ready to start using food to train your dog! But why does it matter to know their medium and low-value treats? If you find out that your dog’s favorite “high value” treat is string cheese, why use anything else in training?
To get the most out of your training with your dog, it’s important to adjust the value of the reinforcer (food) depending on the context, as well as the difficulty of the exercise at hand for the dog. If we always use the highest value reward for your dog in any scenario, we run a risk of first de-valuing that reinforcer. In the same way that even your favorite meal would start to get old over time if you eat it every day for all 3 meals per day, if we use a high-value reinforcer in all circumstances, the value of that reinforcer might decrease over time with some dogs and may be less effective for the behaviors we really need a high-value reward for. So while we don’t want to be so stingy with the reward that the dog is frantic for it, finding a good balance of when to use high-value reinforcers versus when not to use them keeps them valuable enough to have the desired impact on your dog’s learning when needed.
Another reason we use different values of treats is because in some emotionally-charged circumstances for our dogs, using too high value of a treat can “cover up” how a dog is really feeling about something and can actually either reduce a dog’s motivation to take food through training, or can lead us to accidentally assume a dog is making more progress than they actually are. For example, if you have a dog who is working on overcoming their fear of new humans, giving a stranger your dog’s highest-value treat and having them feed the dog may seem like a good idea on the surface. Your dog may willingly approach the new person to take the piece of chicken out of their hand, but this is really only happening because the dog finds chicken so high value that they are willing to put themselves in scary situations to get it, not because they’re actually comfortable approaching that new person in such close quarters. So, once the chicken is gone, the dog now realizes they’re way closer to the new person than they’re comfortable with, and may either bark, run away, or even snap at the person because they’ve now found themselves in an “over threshold” situation. Some dogs may start to refuse food in training entirely in these kinds of contexts because they learn that the presence of high-value food predicts them being put in an uncomfortable or stressful position. In these circumstances, while we do want to use food that is valuable for the dog, we don’t want to use the highest value food that is so “important” to the dog that they’re willing to do things that are out of character for them to get it, at the expense of their stress levels.
The final reason that using high-value food for everything might not be beneficial applies mostly to our very “foodie” dogs out there: there is such a thing as TOO high value! For some dogs who really enjoy taking food through training, there are some circumstances where the reinforcement is so high value, that it affects their ability to focus or stay calm when training. So, if you find yourself in a situation where your dog is jumping all over you, snatching food from you with an unusually “hard” mouth, or is not easily responding to well-practiced cues because they are so desperate to get the food you have, this means your reinforcer is too high value and is affecting your dog’s ability to focus. While we DO want a dog to be motivated to train, we also need to make sure that they’re in the right headspace to focus and learn.
So, When To Use Each Treat Value?
The two main factors that influence what kind of treat value you should use include the difficulty of the behavior for the dog, and the difficulty of the context. Just like how each dog will have their own preferences when it comes to the kinds of food they find low, medium, and high value, this concept can also be very dependent on the individual dog in front of you. So just like before, use this tier system as a general guideline, then think about what your specific dog finds easy to do vs. what is more challenging for them when determining what value of food reward to use in a training context.
Common “Low Value” Training Contexts
“Around the house” behaviors during low-distraction times of day
Practicing well-known cues your dog has rehearsed often, in well known environments
Working on exercises that encourage relaxation, settling, or calm emotional states
Common “Medium Value” Training Contexts
“Around the house” behaviors during higher distraction times of day (guests coming over, children playing in the living room, etc)
Practicing behaviors in increasingly more challenging environments than around the house
Reinforcing a dog for disengaging from something “lower value” in the environment
Common “High Value” Training Contexts
Behaviors that need to be strong to ensure your dog’s safety (coming when called in distracting contexts, etc)
Behaviors that we want to build a strong positive emotional response with (teaching a resource guarder to “drop” or move away from items that they find valuable, etc)
A large payoff after asking for several behaviors in a row, or asking for behaviors that require a long duration or a lot of “self control” from the dog
How Big Should My Rewards Be?
Many people tend to be concerned about training with food rewards because they worry that their dogs may over-eat or consume too many “unhealthy” foods. This is usually based on a misunderstanding that rewards need to come in large quantities for each behavior. However, in many contexts, the frequency of your rewards has a much more importance to your dog’s learning process than the actual size of the reinforcement. For most dogs and most behaviors, we want to be delivering food in small, pea-sized bites per repetition. This can even be further adjusted depending on the size of your dog, if you have a smaller breed and are concerned about too much caloric intake. “Reinforcement history,” or how many times in the past a behavior has been consistently reinforced, is typically much more important to a dog’s learning process than how physically big that reinforcer actually was (with the exception of some behaviors). So, when training with food, try to operate with the mindset of feeding often, but in small, manageable pieces so you can be generous with your reinforcement.
If you’re working with pre-made training treats, often you can get away with breaking these pieces down into even smaller bites, despite them already being advertised as “training” size. Soft, jerky-like textures tend to be easier to break up with your fingers as you train, so that you can adjust the size of the reward accordingly for the dog in front of you. If you are preparing your own treats (cheese, meats, hot dogs, etc), you may want to use a veggie chopper to cut up a large bulk amount of food into small pieces all at once. If you are on a budget or want to monitor the ingredients you’re feeding to your dog, making DIY training treats with at-home ingredients and silicone molds may be the best way to accumulate a large amount of healthy, bite-sized rewards.
How Should I Carry Food Rewards When Training?
If you purchase pre-made training treats at the pet store, you may be tempted to just bring the bag with you out and about while training your dog. But generally, carrying your bag of treats around while also trying to keep your hands free for delivering rewards, managing your dog’s leash, etc can become quite cumbersome. Having a well-made, high quality treat pouch is the best way to ensure you have food reinforcement available to you at all times in an easy-to-access manner. Treat pouches come in a variety of styles, including attachments around the waist, crossbody attachments, clip-on styles, etc. They can also come with other features that make bringing them along with your dog even more convenient, including waste bag dispensers, extra compartments for your phone/keys, etc. Having a reliable treat pouch to store your rewards in is an essential way to make training easier to achieve for you as you go out and about with your dog. Some treat pouch styles we like:
When around the house and not wearing a treat pouch to train, you may want to set up “treat stations” in easily accessible areas instead. Setting up tupperware containers or jars of shelf-stable food rewards (dry treats, kibble, plain cheerios, etc) in areas that you frequent ensure that if you notice a “training moment” in your day with your dog, you have a jar nearby to access with rewards to reinforce your dog for desirable behavior. I tend to recommend setting up treat stations by front doors/entryways you frequently use, in common sitting areas, and in areas you notice your dog tends to display “problem behaviors” that you want to work on through training. Be sure to set these stations up with lids and high up on surfaces your dog cannot access!
When Should I Start Fading Treats From My Training?
When we first start teaching new behaviors to our dogs, the rate of reinforcement (how often you’re feeding treats) usually needs to be pretty high in order to clearly communicate the desirable behavior you’re looking for to your dog. Each behavior is going to need a different approach for “proofing” and fading treats from the picture, so I can’t give a specific training plan that will work for all training goals. Philosophically, training your dog is just like any other skill you want to stay strong- it will always need practice and reinforcement to some degree. But, the good news is that once your dog has mastered a behavior in various contexts and difficulty levels, you tend to be in a good place to start changing up and slowing down on your reinforcement while still keeping the behavior strong.
Before starting to think about slowing down on the frequency of rewards you’re feeding your dog, ask yourself if you’ve done a sufficient amount of work “proofing” the behavior to the situations you need it. Dogs are contextual learners, meaning skills need to be practiced in all kinds of circumstances if we want to have a dog who will perform a behavior reliably in “real life” scenarios. A sit in the kitchen at home may not transfer over to a sit at a busy restaurant patio if we aren’t practicing and reinforcing the behavior in all kinds of varying situations and distraction levels. Don’t start thinking of tapering off reinforcement for a behavior until you have practiced in a large variety of settings, and your dog is giving you a strong reliable response in all settings. This can take quite a bit of time! Training is a lifelong practice with your dog, not a destination to arrive to quickly and dismiss.
When you are finally ready to start fading rewards or slowing down on how often you are rewarding your dog, be sure to do so in small increments. As an example, if you’re rewarding your dog every few steps when loose leash walking training, your dog may become frustrated and confused about the criteria you’re looking for if you jump to only rewarding them a few times on the entire walk. When adding duration between reinforcement, only do so in increments of a few steps, seconds, etc at a time so that your dog still understands that the behavior criteria is the same. If you need help with advancing your dog’s skills, reach out to us! We’re happy to help you build a custom plan for helping layer your dog’s new behaviors into more “real life” circumstances.
You may also want to consider incorporating other “life rewards” into your training as well so that you can dynamically reinforce your dog with other things beyond food. Many dogs who enjoy playing tug, fetch, etc may work well for a toy reinforcer. Friendly, social dogs may find being released to “go say hi” to a person a highly valuable reward after giving you engagement and calm behavior first. Access to “go sniff” on walks can be highly reinforcing for dogs who love to use their nose. While praise or petting on its own isn’t always motivating enough to be used as a reinforcer for most dogs, many dogs will work for these rewards in certain contexts or if you ensure your behavior when engaging them is energetic, playful, and high energy. Think about all of the things your dog enjoys, and try to figure out if any of them can be used as a reinforcer in training!
What If My Dog Isn’t Very “Food Motivated?”
A dog’s motivation to train for food can be a complex topic that is variable depending on the individual dog in front of you. Typically, there are several factors at play that can be worked on. If you have a dog that has trouble taking food through training in certain (or any) contexts, check out this post going into depth about building a dog’s motivation to train for food!
