Depending on your dog, as all dogs are individual in their motivations and activity an armoury of high value treats is vital in training your dog. Operant conditioning is the method of training our dogs to perform certain behaviours following certain cues or commands and it requires a short burst of cue, behaviour, reward for it to be successful. Especially in the early days! We can also work to condition our dogs to behave or emotionally respond in a certain way in certain situations or during a series of events that the dog is required to remain calm. In these situations a high value reward that lasts longer and floods the dogs system with happy hormones is required. Depending on the goal of your training there are many options available and it is important that you consider the following when you are making your choices.
Things to Consider.......
1. Smell, texture and consistency
Like children are attracted to sweets and sugar, dogs are attracted in the same way to meaty flavours and smells and wet consistencies. The meatier and smellier the better!
It is also really important to consider the consistency when thinking of the period of time it will take the dog to consume the treat. When we begin to train a dog to perform a certain behaviour in response to a cue, which may be a command, a movement, sound or visible cue (or series of cues) we need to ensure that the behaviour is rewarded immediately and that the reward is both intense and fleeting. If the reward item takes too long for the dog to consume two things could happen. Firstly, the dog will remove itself with the treat and find a more comfortable area to enjoy eating it and secondly the dog may begin to associate that particular treat with other cues, environments and situations. So it must be a short, sharp, intensely satisfying reward.
2. The Content
We must always be aware that there are many human foods that are toxic to our dogs. Grapes, raisins and chocolate are the top three, but you must also avoid the following:
Grapes, raisins, sultanas
Artificial sweeteners (xylitol)
Caffeine and alcohol
Chocolate
Onions, garlic and chives
Macadamia nuts
Cooked bones
Avocado
It is also important to take care of foods that contain a high level of sodium and fats, as used in the long term these affect your dogs cardiac health.
3. Easy to Obtain and Not Too Expensive!
It is likely that in the early days you will need to use a lot of treats to make a start on training a specific behaviour. As time goes on you will be able to build in bridging signals. If working with a clicker your dog will respond to the clicker as though it were the treat itself, provided that ultimately the dog receives the treat at the end of a series of click rewards........I could write a whole article on clicker training, its intricacies and how best to make a start! Maybe that should be my next blog!
The best advice I can offer is to start small, a lick of a treat dispensed from a tube, however small is still a great reward!
Top 5 High Value Treats!
Fish based treats are smelly and full of omega 3. They can improve your dogs digestive, joint, dental and coat health and contain no grains that may upset your dogs digestion
Fish4dogs salmon bites are small, and quickly eaten. They are £4.00 for 80g and available from
Liver Paste can be dispensed quickly from a tube and is extremely smelly and palatable to your dog. They can also be spread on a lick mat to create a longer lasting reward that can work in situations where your dog may feel stressed, or to reinforce the use of an area or a preferable response over a period of time.
Arden Grange Liver Paste is available in 75g tubes and can be purchased for £2.59 from
Baby Food can be purchased from all supermarkets, chemists and local smaller grocery shops. They are low in sodium and explicit in their contents on the packaging. You can often purchase straight vegetable recipes such as sweet potato, carrot, banana. They are also now packaged in handy squeezable pouches! Just be aware that sweet potatoes contain starchy sugars they would not be suitable for excessive use.
The Ellas Kitchen brand can be purchased at £1.30 from most supermarkets and boots!
Small cubes of low far cheddar cheese are great and easy to obtain from all food stores. There is an element of care to be taken with the quantity given to your dog due to the high fat content, you could simply cut the cubes smaller and purchase the lower in fat variety.
Cocktail sausages are a great motivator for most dogs, but I would recommend slicing them into smaller chunks (even for large dogs!) Cocktail sausages are high in fat and can be high in sodium so should always be used sparingly.
Most supermarkets and smaller food retailers stock picnic packs of cocktail sausages from about £1.40 per pack
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