Training treat suggestions?

Georgygirl

Georgygirl

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I need to get a little more creative with Walter's treats for training and I was hoping to get some suggestions from you guys. I need some more options for treats while we're working with distractions. It takes a really stellar treat for this because he's not terribly food motivated. Right now we're using pieces of chicken breast and turkey hotdog slices. I'd like to switch it up though so he doesn't get too bored.

What we've tried before:
-soft packaged treats (zukes, cloud star, bil-jac) - got bored of it
-freeze dried chicken meatballs (too crumbly)
-green tripe jerky strips broken into pieces (got bored of it)
-pieces of steak (he spit these out half the time...my dog is weird)

Anybody have something that works well for them?
 
Peanut butter on a spoon and wet dog food. It's super gross because I usually scoop out with two fingers and let him have a chunk of it but he'll take over just about anything. I've also done a bully stick and let him have a couple of licks and chews before taking it away. It's kind of slow but works for him when he's getting distracted.
 
The Ziwipeak ones were really nice and clean to break up into smaller pieces. I think they have venison, lamb, and beef?

The Primal chicken nibs are awesome. They do have sea salt and honey in them with the chicken, but they are really nice because they are clean, small, and consistently sized.

The lakse kronch salmon treats are very good high value ones! Can be pretty messy to break up though. I use those a lot for Scout's BAT/LAT training in various places, otherwise we mostly just use their kibble for other training.

Would he like tiny pieces of cheese? It is really easy to tear up string cheese tiny. But both that and hot dogs are very high calorie.
 
These have been like crack for the dogs in my classes (and my dogs). They're a great size, stink a ton and you can mix it with their dog food and let it all saturate in gross smelling food.

http://freshpet.com/products/vitalcompeltemealscatchickenrecipe/

Vital-Complete-Meals-Cat-1-LB.png
 
Mine particularly love freeze dried liver. I also use cheese a lot, string cheese is nice because it comes prepackaged and sometimes I even take bites off it and spit it at him. Really awesome for getting focused eye contact. Sometimes I also use really stinky cheese, though not too stinky. I tried Limburger once and he wasn't sure whether to eat it or roll in it.
 
It's a bit messy, but buy raw liver at the grocery store and microwave it. The smell as it's cooking is a good teaser too, haha. Pan is also a huge fan of deli meats, lately garlic roast beef, lol.
 
Thanks for the suggestions everyone! I'm definitely adding these to my treat rotation and we'll see how Mr. Picky reacts.

I'm really not used to having a dog that turns down treats. I can get Joey to do practically anything for a Cheerio, so this is new territory for me. :)
 
Linds said:
These have been like crack for the dogs in my classes (and my dogs). They're a great size, stink a ton and you can mix it with their dog food and let it all saturate in gross smelling food.

http://freshpet.com/products/vitalcompeltemealscatchickenrecipe/

Vital-Complete-Meals-Cat-1-LB.png
Click to expand...


Another vote for Fresh Pet. Caleb can't have the dog food, and the cat food is too small. So I use the treats that look like little sausages. I slice them up, and cut each slice in half.

A heads up on salmon- all the salmon treats I used left grease stains on my clothes. Luckily, except for the long johns that nobody sees, I was able to get them out.
 
Some meaty meats... Beef heart, pork heart, goat heart, lamb heart, sheep heart, turkey heart. Beef lung, lamb lung, pork lung. Beef and lamb trim. Turkey breast chunks. Venison. Fish. Pork butt and shoulder. Quote from this cool blog I follow: http://www.myrottendogs.com/2013/01/how-i-feed-raw.html

And not sure if this is very practical, but:

I have a mini ice cube tray (they make ice cubes like 1cmx1cm each), and I mix peanut butter and water and dump them in. They come out in little peanut butter ice cubes. I don't do this all the time, since it's a bit of a hassle and melts if you're doing longer-term training, but just throwing this out there! ouo
 
Easy Cheese. Easy Cheese all day long. My dogs are fanatics for any and all food, but this one is noticeably THE ONE for them.
 
Riley isn't very food motivated either but string cheese (I cut it into thin slices with a pair of scissors) and freeze-dried lamb lung are usually winners.
 
String cheese is always a big hit with the dogs at the rescue (we buy giant packs from Costco for the dogs). I also find that a lot of really picky dogs enjoy any kind of jerky treat. I recently bought Pet Greens jerky for Fable, and she LOVES them (not like she's picky, though). It comes in small pieces that are pretty easy to tear if you want to give him tiny pieces, so they are great for training. And it's all made in the US with US sourced ingredients so I don't have to worry about anything from China.

https://www.bellrockgrowers.com/dogtreats.html
 
Another vote for both liver and the fresh pet select stuff. I buy liver from the grocery store and put it on cookie sheets and bake it on low heat for a while, then chop it up...my dogs love it, even the picky eaters (I have 2 that don't like hot dogs and cheese is meh). And I usually buy the tubes of Fresh Pet Select and then cut it into little bits. They like it but not as much as liver.

The liver does make the house smell awful though (I hate liver...).
 
Panzerotti said:
Haha!

The liver reeks, but that's what makes it so amazing! :)

Years ago I made liver muffins, which forever ruined a blender and stunk up my whole apartment floor, lol.
Click to expand...

I used to make liver brownies, Sis was not happy the house would reek for a day.
 
Panzerotti said:
...Years ago I made liver muffins, which forever ruined a blender and stunk up my whole apartment floor, lol.
Click to expand...


LOL I killed a blender making it, too. I used to make the one with Jiffy Cornbread. It didn't stink too much, but the recipe also called for garlic to help with the smell.
 
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