How to Use Dog Treats for Training

Fast- vs Slow-Eating Treats

Fast-eating treats are consumed quickly and are best suited to training sessions where you’ll be giving your dog a lot of treats in a short time. This is useful when doing quick, repetitive lessons, and trying to keep your dog focused. (For example, when you’re training your dog to walk on a leash or retrieve a throw-toy.) These should be healthy, small and easy to carry.

Slow-eating treats are rewards for longer-term behaviors—like sleeping in a crate or being good when left at home alone. Chew sticks and toys that can be stuffed with healthy treats are great examples.

Lure vs Bribe

This is a common pitfall for owners that can lead to much frustration. When we start treat-based training, food is designed to be a ‘lure’ that triggers a certain behavior. But gradually, a dog can turn the tables—they won’t perform the behavior until they receive the treat first.

For example, you say ‘sit.’ Pup doesn’t sit. You walk into the kitchen and grab a doggie chew, show it to pup, ask again, and now they sit. This is a bribe.

For this reason, it’s important to always keep the ‘lure’ hidden until after they have performed the requested behavior. Your dog should behave well because they hope it will result in a tasty treat—not because they expect a treat to be guaranteed.

Fade the ‘Lure’

While food is a great motivator to create positive behavioral patterns, the end-goal is to generate those behaviors without the use of food at all.

When we first begin teaching a new behavior with food-based rewards, every correct response is rewarded. We call this ‘continuous reinforcement’—and it’s important to interrupt this pattern as soon as possible.

A ‘variable reinforcement’ schedule is the ultimate goal. This means that treats are given randomly when your dog completes a cue. Keep your patterns consistent, but start phasing out the rewards after every instruction is obeyed. Now your dog won’t know exactly when they might get a tasty treat after they do the right thing, so they’ll keep following orders in hopes of hitting paydirt.


This builds motivation while keeping rewards as treats—not snacks!—which is ultimately the goal of treat-based training.