Treats: Bacon, liver and cheese, oh my!

I, Talos, do not aprove of this message. I
am not getting too many treats! Outrageous!

I train with treats. Especially when we're learning new things, or practicing something in a new location, or working on short behaviours, or practicing good manners near people, or... well, I train with treats a lot. There's pretty much always a something something in my pocket.

I also have teeny, tiny little dogs. Itty bitty pooches that both of them, really, really love food.

Here we have the crux of the matter. Treats are easy. Anything your dog likes is a good treat. My list is long and varied, for the one it's mostly meat, for the other, fruits, some veggies and cheese is definitely also there.

Also easy is making your treats tiny. It's necessary to have them teeny tiny, because it's so easy to feed a small dog into rotundness.

But even so, I've noticed a distinct softness about the waistline of my pug. She's up 500 grams from where she was.

We have been training a lot, mind you. But I need to be careful! 500 grams on her is a 10 % weight gain.

So, some ideas for ways to stretch your daily treat allowance:

1. Use their food for treats.
Easier said than done, sometimes, but this is the best way to get more training bang for less calories. You can absolutely cut kibble into smaller bits. If you feed a canned food or a minced raw, it's slightly less gross if you have the food a bit frozen. If you feed prey model raw... well, I guess you could still chop it up, but that kinda defeats the purpose?

2. Pick low calorie treats.
Sometimes this is bad - paper is low calorie, but is definitely not good for you. That said, there are great low calorie treat options. Bits of fresh apple, dried lung of any animal and carrot cubes are three low calorie suggestions that most dogs will like. Putting a tiny bit of 'bad stuff' into lots of low calorie stuff also works - a tiny bit of peanut butter in apple puree makes a tempting treat for dogs who don't like apple, but do like peanut butter (it even gets my two eating cucumber, which is pretty much water in terms of calories!).

3. Use different kinds of rewards.
Throwing a ball or offering a tug is a great alternative reward, building motivation and a relationship with you also. Plus, it's exercise, which your doggy can do with more of, I promise. The downside - not all dogs are toy motivated (not all are food motivated either, but then a discussion of treats is not relevant in the first place). You can build toy drive, but it takes time. It also takes time to reward with a toy. I can feed a treat a second (or more) during some training. You cannot play a game of fetch in that amount of time. So, this is great for rewarding behaviour chains, but not so good for rewarding a quick "101 things to do with a box".

4. Cut the treats even smaller.
If you're like me, then you prefer breakable treats that you tear pieces of as you go (chicken, both boiled or dried, is just super for this!). This means your treat sizes are already pretty small. But make an effort to give smaller treats, the reward is the same for your dog, and you are less likely to stray, like me, into feeding your dog too much.

Whatever you do, remember that treats are food too, and that it's all too easy to feed a tiny dog too much. Plan your treats like you plan their meals - weigh them, and know how much you give them.