I’ve often heard the that if you use treats, your dog is working for treats and not for you. And that they won’t respond as well in real life when you need them to. That idea is, well, a bit amusing to me.

Food is a powerful motivator for a dog. Your dog needs to eat anyway. Why wouldn’t you harness that and use it to your advantage in training?!?

When Kolt was a baby dog, he got at least half of his meals as training treats. Basic obedience, bark alerts for SAR work, shaping games, pet tricks. He was having fun with me and getting to eat – what could be better? I’d take him for off leash runs in the field, recall and throw a party with rapid fire kibble. I fed him cheese sticks during vet visits for puppy shots.

I used it to build habits, positive associations and capture attention. I was the cool person with all the great stuff. He loved it, I loved it.

But I didn’t rely on those treats to do the work for me. I talked to him, I used my voice and body language to get into training. I played with him (not throw the toy play, but goofy interactive play with me). I built a relationship where food was just one aspect and most importantly we were just having fun together.

Today I got my camera out to take pictures and grabbed a few treats to better capture Kolt’s attention. He got super excited. And I realized that I’d hardly used treats all week. And guess what? He still happily did tricks when asked. He went to the vet and was a happy go lucky and pretty well behaved dog. He recalled beautifully even in high distraction areas.

Food definitely helped build those conditioned responses.

The problem with using treats in training is not with the treats. It’s with the people who expect the treats to do the training for them. When treats do the training, you always need to have them. When * you * do the training and use treats to accentuate it then they are a powerful and valuable tool that reinforces training and helps to make it incredibly fun and interesting for your dog.