What Treats Should I Use for Training?

Training with Food: The Basics

If you’ve been to our classes, you’ll be familiar with how we use food for training behaviours. If you haven’t been to our classes, be prepared to bring around 1-2 cups of training treats. What might surprise you about our classes, though, is what we prefer to train with, and that is… drumroll… kibble!

Kibble is a surprising answer for many dog guardians and positive-reinforcement training enthusiasts. Kibble is generally considered “Low value” and therefore, not that motivating for dogs. However, in this article I plan to highlight some of the reasons why kibble is actually one of the better reinforcement strategies for your dog and how we can overcome some of the barriers preventing people from using it.

Before we get started, everybody should be familiar with the basic theory behind training with food. Remember your A→B→C’s everybody! Antecedent → Behaviour → Consequence. A cue like “Sit” is given (that’s a type of “antecedent”), your dog performs the desired behaviour, and then food is presented. The order of these events is very important. The cue should always happen first, then the behaviour and finally food happens last. If you muddle these up and present food at the beginning of the sequence, you can end up with serious problems advancing beyond the first steps of your training program. You can read about those problems in Katrina’s Blog “My Dog Only Listens with Treats”, found here. If you really understand your  A→B→C’s, it’s possible to do all kinds of interesting things with dogs, including training without food at all.

High vs. Low Value Reinforcement 

You might see dog training articles or social media posts refer for reinforcement as “High value” or “Low value”. Ultimately, this just means how motivating the reinforcement is for your dog. While there are some general rules of thumb around what dogs find high or low value, ultimately nobody can tell you more about what’s good than your dog themselves. For some dogs, the most motivating, most exciting activity imaginable is chasing their favourite frisbee, and they’ll forget about food so long as the toy is in sight. For other dogs, their top tier reinforcement is some delicious morsel of meat and no ball or tug could even come close. Once in a while, I’ll meet a dog who will do anything for a butt scratch. When it comes to food reinforcement, dogs generally find some foods (like boiled chicken, hot dogs, cubed cheese or sardines) much more compelling than other foods (like cubed veggies, kibbles or blueberries). For every dog, there will be a number of “high value” foods and “low value” foods which can loosely be bucketed into either category based upon your dog’s enthusiasm on consumption. If you’re not sure what your dog likes best, feel free to present them with a few options and see which items get prioritised. Don’t forget to watch your dog’s body language for additional clues!

For most dogs, kibble falls squarely into the “low value” reinforcement bucket. As with anything, there are some exceptions, of course. We recommend kibble as a one-size-fits-most solution, but really we are looking for a food reinforcement which is considered “low value” by your dog for the purposes of routine training.

Both high value and low value treats have a place in dog training, but should be used in the correct context. High value treats tend to increase arousal levels, which leads to snappy responses and strong conditioned emotional responses (CER+) which make them perfect for training recall and drop. Low value treats, on the other hand, tend to keep arousal lower, and typically don’t cause the dog to abandon environmental distractions. You might be thinking high value treats are always superior based on that information, but low value treats have an extremely important role to play.

Nutrition

We love our dogs, and we don’t want training with food to impact their health and wellbeing. A balanced diet is just as important for our dogs as it is for ourselves, and using too many treats can upset an otherwise complete nutrition plan. Generally speaking, your dog should be getting 90% or more of their daily calories from nutritionally complete, balanced meals. Nutritionally complete means that the meal contains all of the dietary components (fat, protein, carbohydrate/fibre, vitamins and minerals) needed for health, and balanced means that these components are occurring in the correct ratios relative to each other. Treats which are not designed to be complete, balanced meals will not contain dietary components in the correct ratios, and should only make up 10% or less of your dog’s caloric intake. If your dog is eating more than 10% treats, they could become deficient in important nutrients as a result, or could easily become overweight as they eat more regular food in order to hit those nutritional requirements.

The scientific literature shows enough evidence to take dog obesity very seriously. Overweight dogs lead shorter lives and are prone to developing health issues which impact quality of life. Training is important, but health and wellbeing always come first.

Since everybody has an opinion on everything these days, I want to clarify that The Dog School, Inc. isn’t advocating for any particular diet style. Home-cooked diets utilising a variety of fresh ingredients can be an incredible option for dogs, so long as they are nutritionally complete and balanced over the course of the day. Components from these diets can then be portioned into training treats, and even if each component isn’t “complete” or “balanced” on its own, the daily intake as a whole, is. This can get very difficult to manage for the average dog guardian, though, and it’s advisable to check in with an expert to make sure you’re on the right track. For those of us not keeping detailed spreadsheets tracking our dog’s nutrition, it gets much easier. Meals which already come complete and balanced (like kibble, pre-portioned fresh or frozen meals, canned food and freeze dried meals) can be mixed-and-matched without upsetting the overall nutrition profile. This means you can feed canned food at mealtimes, but train with kibble, and your dog is still getting everything they need so long as you are feeding the correct total amount of calories per day.

If you’d like to raise a lean, healthy and long-lived dog, it’s important to feed them a good diet, and training treats are part of that diet. The more we can use nutritionally complete foods to reinforce our dog’s behaviour, the easier this becomes. To that end, kibble is kind of the ideal solution: it’s a single component, it’s cheap, it’s nutritionally complete and balanced, it’s not messy, it’s bite-sized and it’s easy to portion out.

Now, not all kibbles are created equally. That is a topic for another day, but some kibbles are much higher quality than others. It’s a good idea to change the kibble brand or recipe once in a while to protect against any deficiency one product might have, which could cumulatively affect your dog over time. We also recommend choosing different kibbles to train with, to keep the training reinforcement interesting and novel to your dog. It’s very common for some kibbles to be more palatable than others, and because kibble is already low value, it’s a good idea to utilise a palatable kibble that your dog enjoys. 

We love kibble because it’s cheap and convenient, but there are some good reasons to choose kibble-alternatives instead of kibble. The most important thing is that the food you are using most of the time (90%+) is safe, complete and balanced. Kibble alternatives are typically cooked or raw meals which are dehydrated, freeze-dried or air-dried in bite sized clusters. These meals tend to be more palatable, so can be ideal for pickier dogs, and generally contain more protein than standard kibbles. The main drawbacks are that these products are more crumbly, and are much more expensive.

Environmental Habituation 

Remember when I said low-value reinforcement has its place in dog training? It’s not just because it’s healthier for your dog. Low-value treats are, by definition, less motivating for your dog. When your dog stops eating low-value treats in order to engage with a common environmental distraction, that tells you something very important: your dog is not yet habituated to the environment they are in. 

Common environmental distractions are things like traffic sounds, people going about their day, dogs working nearby in a classroom or simply smells in the grass. These are distractions that your dog encounters daily, and are not particularly novel. Habituation occurs when a dog becomes so used to an environment or distraction, that it is no longer particularly interesting or relevant to them. Habituation is achieved through repeated exposure. For example, if you move home the new house may initially seem very exciting for your dog - they may spend lots of time exploring and sniffing each new room and corner. Over time, as your dog settles, they no longer spend time exploring and simply relax in their favourite spots.

High-value treats can mask this habituation process for common training environments. In order for habituation to take place, the animal must become used to the stimulus. When we pull out the high-value treats, the dog will generally stop looking around at what’s going on, and lock-in to the training instead. We are, quite simply, blocking the habituation process from occurring. When we use low-value treats instead, our dog simply won’t work for them if the environment is too distracting. They will instead, sniff, explore and, look around just like the dog in the new house example. With time the environment will lose its novelty and training for low-value treats can take place. Rather than change the value of the food to block environmental interest, it is better to change the environment to facilitate training with low-value treats. In group classes, we may utilise visual barriers so a distracted dog cannot see their next-door neighbour; outside we might start with quieter parks or places with more distance between our dogs and the main distractors. In either case, over time, the environment can (and should) be adjusted gradually to include more common distractors, or distractors at high intensity. Remember: the goal is to have a dog that can look at a distractor, and choose to work with you anyway. Not to have a dog who is never looking around, because they've been micromanaged.

Another problem that can happen with high value treats is that we can inadvertently teach our dogs that outdoor environments are always paired with extremely motivating treats. This changes their expectations overtime. A dog who expects to work for high value treats will feel dissapointed when they are n0 longer available. This can result in the inability to settle, or demand behaviour like barking.

Functional Reinforcement

High-value treats can get in the way of something called “functional reinforcement”. Functional reinforcement means that the reinforcement strategy satisfies the original function of the behaviour. Let’s say your dog is desperate to swim in the sea, and you’re walking on leash towards the beach. Your dog may start pulling, because they’d like to get there faster. The function of pulling is to gain access to the sea. If you teach the dog that walking on a loose leash will earn them freedom to swim, the loose leash walking behaviour will be functionally reinforced by swimming, which was the original point of the unwanted behaviour. We wrote a pretty comprehensive article on this topic, “Why you should run from engage/disengage” which you can read here. The tl;dr though is this: in some situations, your dog does not want food. There’s something else that your dog wants far more than food, and in those situations, it’s best to accept this and work with your dog rather than jack up the value of the food in a misguided attempt to simply force the reinforcement outcome you wanted.

One example of this is chasing behaviours. Many dogs see a moving object, person or animal as an opportunity to chase. Chasing, for dogs, is an extremely reinforcing behaviour. If we wish to try and curb inappropriate chasing behaviour, it is usually easier to use a functional reinforcer which includes chasing, rather than a reinforcer which does not. Put simply, if my dog is looking at a squirrel and having murderous thoughts, I’m going to have more luck getting them to engage with a flirt pole than getting them to eat a treat. 

A second example is if my dog is afraid of something. If my dog is fearful, what they’d like most is to feel safe. Therefore, they’re much more likely to want to move away from the scary thing than to want to eat a treat right in front of it.

In both cases, higher-value treats become a bit of a red herring. Before we increase the value of treats to cope with a distraction, consider: what does my dog actually want right now? If you can use that information to create a reinforcement strategy which meets the function of the original behaviour, then you’re much more likely to succeed in your training plan. 

High and Low Food Drive Dogs

Food drive in dogs describes how motivated a dog is to work for food. Food drive is somewhat determined by genetics; Labs are known for being enthusiastic eaters, whereas Poodles are known to be picky. There are some extra considerations for both ends of the spectrum.

For our high food drive friends, using low value food feels “easier” as the dogs are more willing to work for it; all foods are effectively “high value” for some dogs. The main thing to watch for if you have a high food drive dog is that even kibble can be high enough value to mask environmental distractions, leading to dogs who never fully habituate to new places. This means that so long as the food is coming, and the dog is working, everything is OK… But the moment the food stops? You might have a distractible dog on your hands who cannot calm down and relax, or a dog who engages in demand behaviour to try to get you to feed them again. For these dogs, I recommend reading our settle blog found here and working on environmental habituation without food at all. It’s also very important to have clean training mechanics, which means keeping your A→B→C’s in order, and trying not to touch your treat pouch at all until after you mark the correct behaviour. For high food drive dogs, the mere suggestion of food (hand in pocket) can be distracting enough to derail your training efforts.

For our low food drive friends, it’s the opposite. These dogs are usually called “fussy” or “picky” eaters, and handlers will lament that their dogs aren’t motivated to work for food at all. If that’s you - believe me, I get it. My poodle Eleanor is absolutely a fussy eater. Before you up the treat value, though, it’s important to check there’s not another reason for your dog’s fussiness. Allergies and intolerances are common, and often tank a dog's appetite. Many “fussy” dogs are actually overweight and likely feel too full to be motivated to eat more. Some fussy dogs have dental issues, or won’t eat because the training environment is too stressful. It’s important to resolve these issues first, if they exist.

Building drive in low drive dogs is something we like to focus on in our Key Skills classes. If you are a current student and have access to our class handouts, you will see several exercises labelled as “drive builder” throughout our key skills classes. These games are designed to increase working drive through creating predictable reinforcement routines which include chasing or play to build drive in your dog. Many of these games, especially the treat toss and zen bowl games, are designed specifically to increase food drive. By building drive in our dogs, we can increase their motivation to play without having to reach for the special treats.

If you have a low food drive dog, be careful not to train food refusal accidentally. This happens when a dog decides (on purpose) to refuse a low value meal because they know that you will provide them with an alternative, higher value meal instead if they do so. It is always better to provide a more palatable meal up-front which is complete and balanced, rather than replace a standard meal with a higher-value alternative if the dog doesn’t eat it. Look at the A→B→C’s. If you give a standard meal→ and your dog refuses to eat it → so you give higher value meal…. You are quite literally training for food refusal! For training, using a kibble alternative can raise the value of the food without compromising nutrition (and we aren’t worried about high value treats for low food drive dogs - these dogs tend to find food less motivating overall). It’s even more important to train low food drive dogs with nutritionally complete and balanced meals, because if they fill up on treats they are much less likely to eat their meals, and we risk them becoming deficient in something.

When Do I Stop Feeding My Dog?

This is a question we get routinely during the intake process, or in the first few classes. The answer is never: your dog will always require food. As your dog matures and develops good habits, you may find you need to actively train them less, and therefore you can use fewer training treats. As your dog habituates to the environment and learns to settle for longer periods of time, you may need fewer treats as your dog spends more time settling and less time working. However, if you plan to train your dog or leverage known cues and skills, you will always need to use some reinforcement to maintain these behaviours. Food is usually the most convenient reinforcement strategy to use, and you were going to feed your dog anyway (we hope), so we recommend continuing to use it. Students who understand their ABC’s may choose to leverage non-food reinforcement like play, praise or opportunities (e.g. opportunity to say hello or go off-leash) and advanced students may practice using behaviour-chains or behaviour-sequences to get their dog to do more behaviours, for a longer duration, for fewer treats overall.

Before I wrap up, I would like to clarify that I don’t believe in taking a “Nothing in Life is Free” approach to training. Nothing in Life is Free (NILIF) is a training philosophy where people believe their dog must earn all good things in their life, including food, social opportunities, play time or even praise from their person. While I do advocate for using regular food in dog training, rather than super special treats on top of their food allowance, adequate food should always be available to your dog regardless of whether they succeeded in the training or not. For many people, it’s unimaginable to force a dog to go hungry to try to improve a training outcome for the next session, but this was a common tactic in the recent past, and there are still people training today who believe a dog should work for every bite, or go hungry. Personally, I measure out my dogs daily food allowance and use this to train throughout the day. I will then give any unused food as an evening meal at the end of the day.

Conclusion

While this topic is somewhat nuanced, most people should be using complete and balanced dog foods for the majority of their training exercises. Kibble works great for this, but kibble alternatives can be ideal, too. High-value treats like meat, cheese or palatable (but not nutritionally complete or balanced) store bought foods should be saved for specific training exercises like recall or drop, where we want to build a very strong and snappy response. If your dog won’t eat low value treats – ask why! Instead of relying on increasing the treat value, look for other solutions like environmental arrangement, or functional reinforcers.

If you need help with your dog's nutrition, we recommend booking a nutrition consultation with Dr. Deng at Fraserview Veterinary Hospital. If you need help with training a distractible dog, or a fussy eater, come see us at The Dog School!