By Samuel Jose
While we always rate nutrition (meat-based protein) as the key value for any treat, this can be incorporated into many treats you buy. In this article we will look at what are the key factors and advantages in true portability of dog treats, from a dog training perspective (and even just a regular pet owner).
Training dog treats that are truly portable have the major advantage of longevity and being able to be used anywhere. When a dog is in its puppy stage of life, that is important, as repetition in the early years, can make for an excellent obedient dog for the rest of its life with only a few reinforcement lessons required later in life.
The truth behind portable dog treats for training
Mostly people will say its all about convenience. But the reality is that just like snacks for humans, just because its easy to buy, and enjoyable to eat, doesn’t make it healthy or fit for purpose. Humans when on the road, often stop and buy service station / gas station human treats. They are often loaded with sugar and salt and fats, with low protein or any redeeming value for health.
And that is fine for a human, choosing for themselves, but you should consider that just like humans, what you put into a dog, is what their body and brain becomes. If you have close to 100% control on a dog’s diet, you should also consider what is the ingredients in their training treats.
The result you want from portable training treats is that it allows consistent and effective training.
Most treats that a dog will value are big ones that give them a challenge of ripping and chewing a little. But when they are natural (ie animal based)- they are often bigger or greasier than you will want to carry around with you regularly.
For this reason portability of training treats usually means:
- GREAT smelling (to a dog) and natural for nutrition
- ONLY used for training (so that they are highly prized by a dog)
- Lightweight and Compact (so they can be eaten quickly in between training points.
- Low crumbling, great texture, so there is low wastage
- longevity
All of the above factors means that ample of these treats should easily fit well into a plastic bag or pouch for your pocket. Lets look at each of these in detail and how powerful each one can be in getting your dog to accomplish the tasks given.
The importance of ‘GREAT’ SMELLING treats
This is mandatory and one of the major requirements of any dog training treat. If it doesn’t smell exciting, and is ‘moorish’ (in taste) your dog won’t want it. It will fail as a treat.
Taste is a very secondary sense compared to smell for a dog. Big commercial companies have worked decades into how to fool your dog into desiring a completely artificial non-meat-based treat as something that it enjoys the smell of, but all of that money has been dedicated to making money for the company, not making your dog healthy.
This is your own choice of course, but why waste an opportunity to give your dog something it really values and is healthy for it, WHILE you train them? Realistically you will use such a small amount of training treats each day, that cost shouldn’t even be a consideration. Just that they work AND are healthy for your dog.
Dog training treats are one great way to make up for the quality protein deficient most commercial fed dogs suffer from.
Why Treats should ONLY be USED FOR TRAINING
If a meat treat is exceptional, and not given as a main meal, you can get away with feeding it to your dog at home, when you are just bonding. But best dog training results are when the treat is only used in training.
Unless you are a pro-dog trainer, or on an extreme budget, it would make sense to buy the best, unique, smelly (in a good way to your dog) treat you can buy. You will only be buying a relatively small quantity per month for dog training (compared to the kibble or canned food they eat) – so even if it is relatively expensive, you know that it’s the best way of getting your dog onside.
Lightweight and Compact training treats
Lightweight means that the treat is both easy to carry, but also wont weight the dog down when they are sprinting all over the place, such as retrieving training.
Compact means of course that you can fit more of the treats into your bag, but more importantly for small and medium dogs it will allow the right time that they will eat the treat as the reward. A treat that is instantly swallows diminishes the reward.
A treat that takes more than three chomps to swallow means that the dog will be spending too much time thinking about the treat rather than what they got it for, and it will slow down the next training segment. As you only want to train dogs typically for about 5 minutes you don’t want the distracted or using up all the time eating the treats rather than doing their training task.
Low crumbling, great texture dog treat
This can be tricky. If you are using single ingredient meat-based treats, you will have to ensure that they are the right size, and don’t crumble. Crumbling means that they might drop the treat out of their mouth then spend a LOT of time looking for the remnants on the ground. Their whole focus on training will be blown.
This applies as much to plant-based training treats that are ‘glued’ together. Since plant material is typically mainly milled grain, it needs soy or other glue to keep it together. It doesn’t take long for it to be jostled around in your pocket before it is falling apart.
Texture of a training treat is often something that is neglected.
Just like smell for a dog is much more powerful than taste (the opposite of human’s senses), texture of the treat or mouthfeel can often be just as exciting to the experience as the smell of it. It’s a primal thing, like the ripping of meat off a bone. An interesting (natural) texture, can really enhance the experience and reward, and the desire for them to get that treat again.
Longevity of training treats
Counter intuitively, you don’t need or want a dog training treat to withstand a nuclear blast. Typically, the more grain that a treat is made from, the higher the preservative count needed.
Conversely natural meat and offal dog treats (100% single ingredient) have NO PRESERVATIVE, colouring or additives. They don’t need these, and they provide the most pure and exceptional smell and taste to a dog.
The thing to understand about natural dog treats, made from single ingredient products is that they cover the entire spectrum of functionality. Those used mostly for protein, or teeth cleaning, or dog training etc are often very different treats. Natural dog treats, come in all shapes and sizes, and smells and hardness. Perhaps if you are concerned about how quickly the dog training treats disappear, you might consider feeding your dog a bully stick or two at home. These are the opposite and of the spectrum from dog training treats, they are the hardest MEAT, single ingredient dog treat you can buy, and one of the safest, since they cant fit them all in their mouth at once. They will occupy your dog long term, for the in-between dog training sessions you are planning.
But back to the training treats – You don’t want treats to be ‘off’ (because you left them in your car in the sun etc). And that’s because not only does that affect their smell, they can also prevent a health hazard to your dog.
Likewise buying a low quality almost pure vegetable treat, because it has a shelf life of 2 years, and is only interesting to your dog, because of the unhealthy additives is also a bad idea. We recommend putting a little more thought into your dog training treat source, than just trusting the advertising you see in the supermarket.
