From treats to play: the power of rewards in dog training

You can use anything your dog loves as a reward to reinforce behaviours you like and want more of…food, toys, praise, games, cuddles, whatever brings your dog joy!

Dogs and puppies are learning all of the time, not just when you are "training" them! So there are plenty of opportunities everyday to use different rewards when they are "good", rather than focusing on things you don't like.

What can I use to reward my dog?

Rewards can be anything that brings your dog joy. Some dogs are really driven by food whereas others are more toy orientated, the trick is to find out the thing or things your dog loves and use those.

Most dogs like, and are motivated by food, so this reward option is usually a pretty safe bet. It's great to use their dinner for training instead of wasting it by putting it in their bowl. Mixing in higher value treats won't go amiss either, especially when you start working with increased distractions.

When using food in dog training think little and often

The pros of using food is that you can gets lots of repetitions in a session and by paying them generously with yummy food you really help them feel good about their training with you!

The con is the worry about them putting on weight and eating too much "rubbish" so try healthy treats or using their daily food allowance.

Try different types of food to see which your dog really loves. This can change day to day, in the same way that sometimes I don't fancy a steak I want fish instead. Also mixing things up can keep things interesting and prevent a 'too much off a good thing' feeling.

When you are looking for different rewards to use in your puppy and dog training, you can identify different things your dog loves using this "What Brings Your Dog Joy" exercise.

An example of using different rewards to reinforce a behaviour you want

Let's take a great foundation behaviour such as automatic eye contact. This is an offered behaviour without being cued, that teaches our dog it's good to check in and focus on us, even around distractions.

It is a super useful life skill that will also help with numerous other issues including poor recall and pulling on the lead too. It's the foundation for all of your training, because if your dog isn't looking at you, then they are definitely not listening to you!

Think of how many times in a day you could use different things your dog likes to reward them for offering eye contact. Rewards could include:

How often should I reward my dog?

When you start teaching a new task, you'll want to achieve a high number of rewarded repetitions and using food can really help get these numbers up.

Food is such a valuable training and enrichment resource, and chucking it a food bowl is a wasted opportunity, when you can use your dog's daily allowance to reward your dog instead! If your dog isn't that motivated by food, then it's up to you to find out what does motivate them.

Looking at what your dog was bred to do can help you identify other rewards your dog will value:

It's helpful to consider how you can vary what you use as a reward and also how you deliver it to keep things interesting for your dog.

Try and use lots of different things as a reward throughout the day for a 'job well done', and don't miss the opportunity to reward all of the good choices your dog makes.

But my dog is stubborn and won't do what I want!

Contrary to popular belief, pups and dogs are not 'stubborn'.

Think about it logically…if there is something that your dog finds totally awesome why would they think "I know what you want me to do but I'm not going to do it even though I really want access to the awesome stuff!"

Dogs, like people, place different values on different things. Like us, some things are highly rewarding while others aren't!

Take a minute think about what you find rewarding by ranking the following things in order from the one you find most rewarding to the one that is the least rewarding:

Your ranking order will no doubt be different to your friends, family and colleagues because you are an individual with individual preferences…and so is your dog!

What do do if your dog is struggling

If you have set up the environment to help your puppy or dog succeed and they are still not responding, then ask yourself what else you can do to help them out.

Things to ask yourself if your dog is not responding to you when you are training:

1) What reward am I using and is it high value to my dog at this moment? If it isn't you might need to try a different reward that will engage your dog.

2) Does my dog understand what I am asking them to do in this context? If they don't, drop the difficulty rating to a point at which your dog can succeed before moving forwards again

3) Is the environment too stimulating and are they over aroused and simply cannot focus on me? Take action to reduce the environmental stimuli by moving somewhere quieter and with fewer distractions or end the session until you can do this.

Don't push your dog on if they are struggling - there are times that you may may even need to drop the level of difficulty to help them get it right.

Avoid punishing your dog inadvertently

Make sure that your dog really does like the reward you are using.

A common thing I often see is the human patting their dog on the head as a reward. However, some dogs are really uncomfortable with this. Therefore the pat on the head certainly isn't a rewarding experience and may be even a negative one!

For a dog that doesn't like a head pat, using one as a reward actually means that the dog just got "punished" for making a good choice…which means they are going to be less likely to offer the behaviour in the future.

If you found this post helpful, you may also want to check out this blog post too: How to train your dog - 6 top tips for success.

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