Dog Training: To Treat or Not to Treat
Jeff and Katherine Fuller 11.14.12
Congratulations, you have successfully chosen your puppy! Now the training phase begins. The question will undoubtedly arise as to whether treats should be utilized for motivation during training. There are varying opinions on this subject. Some trainers endorse using treats as a way to harness the insatiable appetite possessed by a pup or young dog in order to gain compliance. The opposition believes that using treats is amateurish and unnecessary.
In making your decision, consider how the treat will be used to motivate your pupil. Using treats can be a great tool for getting the attention and motivating a pup or young dog. There are different methods that can be used in concert with treats to teach these young pupils certain commands. Once the pup understands and performs the command, the motivating morsels can slowly be replaced with a soothing compliment. After a command is mastered, you can use the now-anticipated treat for a head start on future skills.
Food is a basic motivator for your dog, so you can use their primitive love of food to accomplish training goals with greater ease. In early training, food will be a stronger motivator than other types of positive reinforcement. Puppy-food kibble, commercial dog treats, or even small bits of “people food” such as chunks of hot dogs will bring out your dog’s hunger to please.
If you are still skeptical about incorporating food rewards into your training program, consider trying it for teaching at least one command. Hopefully after trying this method, you will be able to decide if it is a “treat to treat.”
This article is brought to you by Soggy Acres Retrievers.
Jeff Fuller, Host and Executive Producer of SportingDog Adventures, always loved dogs and hunting, but never expected to make a career out of it. Jeff followed his college career and time in the Army Reserve with a career in law enforcement, until a squad accident ended his career in 2005. Looking for a new path, Jeff began to expand his Labrador breeding program and incorporated Soggy Acres Retrievers. Appearances on local television shows inspired him to aim higher, and SportingDog Adventures was created to provide wholesome, family entertainment geared towards those with an interest in dogs and the outdoors. The show is now in its 4th season, with new episodes beginning each July on the Pursuit Channel, as well as several other networks including The Walk, Tuff TV, and Wild TV Canada. The show is also available year-round online at www.carbontv.com.
Katherine Fuller, wife of Jeff Fuller, came from a dog-loving family with a history of hunting that goes all the way back to her European roots. Still, she never expected to end up using her years of accounting experience and her marketing degree in support of a Labrador breeding program and a hunting show. In addition to her accounting and PR duties with Soggy Acres Retrievers kennel and SportingDog Adventures TV, Kate also appears on many of the episodes, and has also formed a marketing company, Brown Dog Communications, offering the outdoors industry media kits, press releases, web content, social media management, and more. Her contributions to OutdoorHub and other samples of her work can be found at www.browndogco.com. When she’s not writing or chasing after the dogs or the kids, she enjoys researching recipes and natural products, as well as organizing the family’s extensive photo collection.
