All dogs are motivated by food in some way or another and at different levels. So Yes! Absolutely you need to use treats. And no, you definitely don’t. Helpful? Didn’t think so.

Let’s start by replacing the word “treats” with rewards. Dogs are motivated by rewards and associating high value rewards with wanting to continue a behavior, and low value rewards with not continuing a behavior. So you can get creative with your rewards.

Food Rewards

Food is an easy reward to use because it’s a very high value thing we have that dogs need anyway. We can use their daily food allowance and turn it into rewards for good behavior. But some dogs are just not food motivated. Some are food crazed. So we may still need to get creative.

If kibble is not very interesting for your dog, they probably won’t see it as a high value reward. So what else can you use?

• Fruits and vegetables (be careful to only use fruits that are low in sugar like blueberries, cucumbers and watermelon - remove the rind)

• Freeze-dried protein

• Cooked protein

Ways to deliver:

Having the food move makes it come alive and can turn eating in to a fun game. If your dog becomes over stimulated, calm the movement down and just toss the food near your foot. Try to avoid simple scatter feeding (tossing the food on the ground for the dog to scavenge with no purpose other than eating) and always check the ground for safety issues (small rocks or items that can be mistaken for food, unsafe plants, too many tall plants that creates frustration in finding the food, chemicals on the floor, etc).

• Toss

• Roll

• Throw to catch

• Feed directly to mouth

Toy Rewards

What does your dog LOVE to play? Use their favorite toy instead of food.

• Ball on rope

• Fleece tug

• Ball

• Frisbee

• Squeaky toy

• Flirt pole

Real Life Rewards

You can build up to real life rewards as you increase your areas of distraction in the environment. Play detective and find out what the intrinsic rewards are to your dog and what they LOVE to do. Sometimes we don’t need an external reward. If getting a belly rub is the best for your dog, then we are waiting for calm behaviors before delivering the reward. If going outside is simply AWESOME, then we don’t need to treat after calmly walking out the door behind us on command. The reward IS going outside.

The things your dog may like to do are:

• Chase

• Grab/Bite

• Sniff

• Access to Outdoors or off-leash

• Movement

• Jumping

See if you can work those things into a reward for working hard at a puzzle, or a down, or just to make if fun to be around you!

Rewards are treating a behavior you WANT your dog to do. So look to catch them in the act of doing a good behavior all by themselves and reward, reward, reward! If you pup is very excitable, you can use a calm, presence and easy voice as a reward.

You can also train a marker word “Yes” or “Good Girl” or a clicker sound as the reward. We’ll talk later about how to train for the marker and turn your dog into a great gambler!

Visit the Casa Luna Canines semi-private, group dog training web page for more information about Doggie Decorum where you can learn (in person) about rewards to use for dog training.