Knowing which food to use when training your dog can make the whole training process easier for you and more motivating for your dog, so here’s a few tips I’ve learned along the way!

Keep it small (relatively)

Don’t be frightened to cut up treats smaller than they come in the packet, but keep in mind the size of your dog. Too big or too small can mean your dog spends most of your training time either coughing them up, or trying to chew them. The size of treat used for a Jack Russell compared to a Great Dane should differ!

Different skills need different snacks

Bear in mind what you’re training when selecting your treats. Training tricks such as send to bed or send arounds may need you to throw the food, so you’re going to need pretty solid treats that can handle being bounced on the floor. When training loose lead walking, chewing treats may interrupt your flow, so here’s where a squeezy tube full of pate or cheese might come in handy.

Mix it up

As the old saying goes, variety is the spice of life. Having a mixture of treats to work for makes the training process much more fun and exciting for your dog. Fill a sandwich bag with a mix of different goodies, each time you dip in to reward your dog, they’ll get something different, some high value, some low value. This keeps them motivated, it may be a boring piece of kibble, but it may be a tiny bit of super tasty chicken, so your dog will keep working to get the chicken.

Now here are some ideas for things I use when training. All of these should be fed in line with a balanced diet and you should make sure your dog doesn’t have any food allergies/intolerances before feeding them. If in doubt, check with your vet first.

• A portion of my dog’s daily kibble allowance
• Irish Rover Chicken Treats
• Hot Dog Sausages
• Chicken
• Primula Squeezy Cheese
• JR Pet Products (The pates are my favourite but they do a whole range of treats too)
• Blueberries
• Carrots
• Peas
• Dried Sprats