healthy training tricks

[RaeS]

Aoki is finally starting obedience school next week!! What are some healthy treats store brought or homemade do you feed your babies?? Has anyone ever tried Gerber graduates puffs as a treat? A pet store owner feeds her pet that but I wasn't so sure

[dottiesyrky]

My dog loves the healthy Cloud Star brand. He will do anything for either of them!!
I give two, one is Cloud Star Buddy Biscuits , Soft and Chewy, Roasted Chicken. These are about an inch long teddy bears, easily broken up into smaller pieces.
The other is Cloud Star Tricky Trainers, Chewy, Liver Flavor. These are small cylinders but I squish them up into smaller pieces too.
If you want to know more about the ingredients etcetera, you can get them on the Cloud Star website I am sure.
Good luck with the training and obedience.....these treats sure helped with my dog. :-))

[RaeS]

Thanks a lot! I have looked at cloud star buddy biscuits before..I think i opted out because one of their ingredients is garlic powder.

[dottiesyrky]

Some treat types may have garlic powder but I just looked at the ingredients of the two I use and they did not appear have any garlic in them. You could use just dehydrated chicken or liver treats as alternatives. There is a treat called Pure Bites that is pure chicken breast.:-)

[tokipoki]

We also use those soft and chewy Buddy Biscuits mentioned above. One treat can go a long way! If you don't mind something more moist, you might look at Freshpet's Dog Joy treats (the ones you find in the refrigerator case)...the regular Freshpet would be good too if you cut one of those rolls up into tiny pieces or use the small kibble shaped ones. I've also used the Natural Balance Rolls (they have kind of a summer sausage consistency if I remember correctly)...my pups go nuts over these soft treats!

[Nancy1999]

I used all sorts of store bought treats when I was training Joey, he got tired of most of them. The thing that kept his interest was real foods. He loves green beans and will roll over, play dead, fetch and crawl for one! I use the frozen thawed green beans because they have no salt. Another option is to dry out some chicken. Cut chicken into little 1/2 inch cubes and place in over at 200 for an hour and turn over and cook till dry. I keep these in refrigerator and since they are dehydrated, they can easily be kept in a small bag to take to class. One tip, is don't feed regular meal before class, Joey was always full when he went to class, and you want to keep them a little hungry during training so that they will pay attention. You don't want them starving, they will get too anxious. I also used Joey's regular kibble for training, moving to something more tempting if he became disinterested. Most of the training will be done at home, not in class, so use some of his regular food for the first few minutes of training. Good luck, I should have taken obedience instead of trick training.

[gemy]

I 90% of the time use home made treats. Right now my treat bag for training tomorrow, consists of wafer thin carrot sticks, finely sliced roast pork (no spices added), very small amount of parmesan cheese (they go crazy over cheeses), and by small I mean a small pea sized treat, sliced chicken breast very thin and in treat sized portions. I will add tomorrow am some whole grain cheerios. I weigh the training treat bag, and might deduct those ounces from meals that day, unless we are uber active. Think of lots of treats of very small size that might weight1-2 ounces in total. I also have a weigh scale lol.


I when I cook meat, always cook some for the pups for training treats, and I freeze them, in little baggies, then defrost when needed. I use almost all the meats, chicken is a dead on fav, along with roast beef and steak. This way I never have to worry about treat recalls, and well for that matter dog food recalls as my dogs are home fed. I even use fish as treats - although that is a rare treat indeed :-)


Now a little advice, and it takes a bit of getting used to, but say for example you are training your dog to Down/Stay, the stay training is repetitive with you going in every 3 or 5 seconds in the beginning to give a treat for a GOOD STAY. If you have long slim pieces of meat, you can keep one treat in your hand and let your dog nibble on only that section you expose. So with one treat, you can reward 4 or 5 or 6 times...


Good luck with your training.

[Britster]

During training classes I always use real food or dehydrated treats.... keep them really interested in focused in an otherwise busy and new environment!

I always had an assortment in my training bag too so he never knew what was coming. Sometimes I would put some kibble mixed in with it too... I often used the sticks of string cheese. Super easy to break and clean in your hands. The Bravo! treats are super tiny, already cut up and not messy. He goes nuts for the bacon flavored Cloud Star Buddy Biscuits soft ones.

[RaeS]

Thank you all!! 😇