# Training Treats?



## AmeliaPond (Mar 25, 2011)

We are probably going to start obedience classes with our dog. I want to use tiny little training treats. Does anyone have an recommendations? I want a brand that has no corn, by-products, etc. Grain free would be ideal, but if not, that's okay too.

Any brand suggestions?


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## minnieme (Jul 6, 2011)

Make your own! Slice up a chicken breast into tiny little strips and bake for an hour or two at low (200 or less). They're great and have lots of aroma that really gets my dog motivated. Substitute any meat if you suspect chicken intolerance.


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## 1605 (May 27, 2009)

AmeliaPond said:


> We are probably going to start obedience classes with our dog. I want to use tiny little training treats. Does anyone have an recommendations? I want a brand that has no corn, by-products, etc. Grain free would be ideal, but if not, that's okay too.
> 
> Any brand suggestions?





minnieme said:


> Make your own! Slice up a chicken breast into tiny little strips and bake for an hour or two at low (200 or less). They're great and have lots of aroma that really gets my dog motivated. Substitute any meat if you suspect chicken intolerance.


That's what we've been doing as well. You can buy the bulk bags of individually frozen chicken breasts at most supermarkets or club stores, for pretty good prices. We just take one out & thaw it in water (speeds up the thawing process) then either nuke or put it in the oven if we are baking/roasting other stuff that day. I have to admit I don't do the low heat for 1+ hours because that just takes too long.

Other stuff we use:

Jennie O Turkey hotdogs (not a lot of filler & very low sodium) - nuke for about 30 seconds & they are good to go.
Cheese - we cube up whatever we have left over in the fridge

BTW, love your screen name, AP. Do you by any chance travel in a little blue police box? :smile:


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## Unosmom (May 3, 2009)

zukes mini naturals!


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## MollyWoppy (Mar 19, 2010)

I use Merricks Dried Lamb Lungs. Thats all they are, dried lamb lungs - they can be broken into teeny weeny pieces and just kept in your pocket. (make sure there aren't any left when you do the washing, they stink). For super high value treats, I just cook up a chicken breast (has a nice smell) and dice it into little pieces again. So I have a combination, the pup never knows which one shes getting.


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## minnieme (Jul 6, 2011)

Unosmom said:


> zukes mini naturals!


bewaaaareee the zukes....BEWAAAREEE!! O_O

Juss sayin....proceed with caution. :wink:


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

Ours love Ziwipeak....probably the most even though they will take ANYTHING as a treat LOL


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## nikkiluvsu15 (Jun 9, 2010)

For agility I boil chicken then cut up. I also baked some Beef Liver, just enough to be cooked on the outside but moist inside, she absolutely LOVES it. 

She also loves Zuke's and ZiwiPeak treats, but we don't use those very often.


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## pandaparade (Dec 29, 2010)

Whatever meat is on sale at the store is what I buy for treats. Chicken and turkey tend to fall apart but if you buy any kind of beef or pork you should be good to go. Cheddar is a good treat too!


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## Scarlett_O' (May 19, 2011)

I make my guys heart treats...buy a heart, hack it up nice and small and boil it for about 4 minutes.....all of mine will do ANYTHING that I ask!:thumb:


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## wiliana (Oct 5, 2011)

I think that recomendation for treats is very individual and depends from dog to dog. Generally, the best treats are those that dog is crazy for them, cause only when he is crazy about reward he will do everything to get it, and that is what we need in training, the whole dog and his concentration. For some of them the most tasty is Pedigree, or other bad quality treats, even we dont like that idea, and someone else would "kill" for peace of raw. Mine is doing everything for a ball, not for treats.
Training is not feeding, and treats that we are giving shouldnt be more than 5% of daily diet. Treats have to be really small cause we dont need to lose time until dog is chewing reward. Mabye one bite just to taste it and gulp down. Because of this, treats have to be soft, not too dry. Dog cookies are crispy, and dog could choke down, stard caughig, or trying to catch crumbs that are falling on the ground. 
I also think that the best treats are hommade from dryed meat, but not too dry. Drying is just to make treats cleaner for us while keeping them in hand or pocket, althought Im always extremly dirty while Im working with my dog so those "clean treats" can't help me


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## CorgiPaws (Mar 31, 2009)

I'll be honest... if it can't go in a treat pouch due to moisture... I don't like it. If it goes bad for sitting out one day... I don't like it. 

I like small, "dry" treats, that require no chewing, just a bit of flavor to reward the behavior. Freeze dried or ehydrated and jerky varieties top my list. 

We use mostly Ziwipeak, which I have a freaking ton of, but also switch it up with Pure Bites dehydrated treats, and Bravo Trail Mix. Those are our staples, but I'll get just about anything dehydrated or freeze dried. (Bravo trail mix is the PERFECT out-of-the-bag treats for us. Variety all in one mix, and great teeny tiny size.. and dry)
I also cut up hot dogs into tiny pieces... think 200 treats/weenie... and let it sit out overnight on a paper towel to dry out. 

I mix them all up, put a couple handsfull in a treat pouch, and have enough variety to keep their focus (well.. except Timber... whose trainer described her as a rock LOL) 
Mine will take just about anything, and I'll be honest.. I'm just not a stickler about treats because they don't make up enough of my dog's intake to stress about it. I won't be buying beggin' strips any time soon... but mediocre treats are OK at my house. 

I used to like Zukes, but my puppies all seem to get cannon butt with them.... not sure if they changed anything, but I've recently just stopped getting them. I'm awful about keeping treats in their original packaging, and unless i break them into little bits when I get them out they turn rock hard, and those are bitter than I like to use.


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## Scarlett_O' (May 19, 2011)

PuppyPaws said:


> I'll be honest... if it can't go in a treat pouch due to moisture... I don't like it. If it goes bad for sitting out one day... I don't like it.
> 
> I like small, "dry" treats, that require no chewing, just a bit of flavor to reward the behavior. Freeze dried or ehydrated and jerky varieties top my list.
> 
> ...


See I would LOVE to take that approach...but literally Leo will not do ANYTHING for a dried treat, even the slow bake till they are crunchy treat arent going to get ANYTHING out of him!!:tongue: So boiled/chopped heart that sits in the fridge/freezer it is!:thumb:


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## minnieme (Jul 6, 2011)

I've noticed with Minnie I have to "recycle" treats -- I'm sure a lot of you have noticed this with your dogs too. A friend's dog had some Orijen sitting out a while back which Minnie went after like it was Lucky Charms. It got me to thinking... so I bought her some a few weeks ago as training treats. I was amazed at the difference in her performance (I was using lamb jerky previously which she seemed to lose interest in rather quickly). Suddenly she was addicted to Orijen as training treats... acting like it was crack and she'd do anything to get it. It was actually a HUGE help with recall training. Now though, it's becoming kinda...meh.. so we will have to look into something else. 

I'm with Linsey though... treats make up so little of her diet that I would be fine with mediocre ones. When I'm training it's serious business ( :wink: ) so I'll do whatever it takes to motivate a lazy dane.  

I was just thinking today of how much harder it'd be to train a smaller dog. I feel like you'd be limited by how much you can give them. Now, since Minnie is trying to add on a few more pounds, we have longer training sessions and thus she gets way more treats. It's nice because even though she's getting "a lot" of treats smaller than the size of my pinky nail, it's all fairly negligible since she's so big.


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