When to Use Dog Treats to Train Your Dog

If you are a dog owner, your dog is likely one of the most important beings in your life. To reward it, you probably provided it with dog treats almost regularly. But different dog treats are good for different situations. Rewarding your dog with the best treat for the situation is a good way to keep your dog alert and satisfied.

Training

When training your dog, the best kinds of treats are small, easy to chew treats that your dog can swallow quickly. There is a lot of behavioral evidence to suggest that it does not matter how large a treat is, a reward for learning a trick is a reward. So there is no reason to fill your dog up on treats too quickly, since the size of the treat does not matter when it comes to how well a dog will learn a trick.

Using small treats will allow you to train your dog for longer, and the more training your dog receives, the more it will remember the training.

Distraction

Often times dogs will become distracted by objects in the distance, bikers, loud walkers or other dogs. When this is the case, you want to make sure that when you give your dog a treat, it is distracted by the treat long enough to ignore whatever was grabbing its attention. For this, you want to select treats that are larger and take a while to chew. Large cookie treats are good for this purpose, as they break off into several pieces as a dog chews it and take a while to finish eating them. By the time your dog has eaten the whole treat, the object will have passed.

Crate Training

With crate training, it is not the type of treat but its smell. All dogs should have a specific treat that is only given to them when they are going into the crate. A strong smelling treat is especially useful, because your dog will learn that if it smells the treat it is crate time, and your dog may run into the crate on its own or at least do so with very little prompting.

For No Reason At All

Sometimes you may find yourself wanting to simply give your dog a treat for being your dog. A bonus for putting up with all of your human annoyances. In this case, any treat will do, but especially meaty treats may do the trick. Meaty treats are the most delicious treats to dogs. These should only be given occasionally as several of the meatiest treats are not quite as healthy as other treats. But if you give these treats sparingly, your dog will thank you for years to come.

Like everything with dogs, treats are another way to increase your dog’s affection towards you, as well as make your dog happy and less destructive. Treats can be a good way to train, or they can just be a reward for being a good dog. No matter what your reason for giving your dog a treat, choosing the right dog treats can help you achieve whatever you goals are when rewarding your dog.