Why I Think the Word "TREAT" is Problematic in Dog Training!

Hi! 👋🏻 I’m Ella an accredited ABTC-ATI trainer, offering in-person sessions all over London and Sussex as well as virtual training sessions, and here is why I think the word “treat” is problematic in training & behaviourial modification.

To me, the word treat implies something infrequent, something to be used sparingly.

For something out of the ordinary.

Something that has to be earnt.

Something to celebrate a special occasion with.

Often I go to a client's home and they say "wow, it's like Christmas" implying that loads of treats are being used. Way more than they'd ever think of giving their dog in one training session.

The reality is; food is a fantastic tool for training & behaviour modification and usually needs to be plentiful at first, I believe that people do not use enough of it or are not aware of how they can use food with their dogs. We can literally create new neural pathways in the brain and create new associations when using food - it's amazing!

Every time you feed/treat your dog, the brain has a little celebration; dopamine is released and the action is more likely to happen next time, carving out that neural pathway, making it stronger and stronger.

A lot of people worry that their dog will get fat if they use loads of food in their training. Of course, we can also use toys and praise, but often food is more effective.

Sometimes we have to completely change how we feed our dogs; maybe using more of their daily allowance to reward and capture behaviour, or jazz up their kibble (see my reels). Or rethink the type of treats we are using and the size etc.

And yes, we can absolutely decrease the frequency of food being used and look at the types of reinforcement schedules we are using eventually, too.

I am very generous with both my dogs and the access they get to food when training and maintaining behaviours, throughout the day. They also know when the treat bar is open or closed, so there are boundaries around this.

I often give my dogs food when they are just doing something really basic like chilling, or standing and not jumping-up. They don't necessarily have to "earn" it in the traditional sense and it could just be a tiny bit of kibble - no big deal, but their brain gets that little hit of dopamine.

With my adolescent dog I would feed him whenever he saw a dog and now he (mostly) is able to dismiss them and look at me (he used to be terrified of them) - winning!

With my older dog, I treat scatter (with kibble) every now and then when the doorbell goes to help MAINTAIN his new positive associations around it.

I also never leave the house without my treat-pouch, as I never know when I'll need to reinforce, maintain or distract with food.

Let's normalise being generous and plentiful with food in our training.

I will never stop using food with my dogs in training and just in general life. One of them is almost 10yrs old and I will still occasionally reward an amazing recall or maintain how he's feeling around black dogs or the doorbell with a food scatter. Anyway, if you've got this far, thanks! Go give yourself and your dog a little dopamine hit!