How to Wean Off Treats When Training a Dog

Does your dog only listen to you if you have a handful of treats?

I’m sorry to tell you this, but if you answered yes, you have forgotten to complete your training! Using treats to motivate your dog is crucial for learning new behaviours. But we don’t want our dog to rely on them. So we need to train him to obey without treats as well. In my 4 week Sydney adult dog classes we focus on motivating dogs to do what we need from them. But that’s only half of the work!

How to wean your dog off treats?

Dogs are situational learners. The reason that your dog only listens to you when you have a handful of treats is because he has learned that obedience only gets him what he wants if he sees the goods up front. This means that you have always trained him with a treat right in his face. So it’s not really surprising that he ignores you when you are empty handed.

To fix this issue, you need to do two things.

First we need to teach our dog that a reward might be on the way even when it’s not visible. So start keeping them treats in your pockets or a training pouch instead of your hand! Then we need to become unpredictable with our rewards. He’s not going to get a reward every time anymore!

Remember, when teaching your dog something new you need to reward often (every time!)

But when the behaviour has been learnt, you need to start weaning off the treats. Only reward him for compliance sometimes, saving the greatest rewards for his very best performances. If you play your cards right he will quickly catch on that any obedience request is a chance at the jackpot, and you will both have tonnes of fun training.

Join My Sydney Adult Dog Classes

Eazy Dog Training Obedience and Dog Manners Classes run for 4 weeks. Training includes learning basic manners and how dogs learn, and then moves on to more advanced exercises such as stay, not jumping up, walking on a loose lead with distractions, coming when called with distractions, leave it, focus exercises, maintaining control and so on.

I also run beginners dog agility classes!

Classes run every 4-6 weeks.