I know that I can use the puppies kibble for training but not only do I want to get the pup trained to a clicker as soon as possible, I don't want large treats all of the time.  I am picking him up tomorrow at 7 weeks old - what good treats can I use that are suitable and small but high value? (and less high value for ongoing training) 

I buy the packs of pre cooked cocktail sausages and cut them up into tiny pieces - 8-10 from one sausage. Have been using this with my latest rescue dog - WSD -  and a pack lasts for ages. I freeze them in bags of 6 and take one out as and when needed and they defrost really quickly. Also use a squeezy tube of Primula cheese to ring the changes - a tiny squeeze for him to lick straight from the tube so the tube lasts for ages.

Forget treats made for dogs as they are almost always too boring. (I'd say the exception is Natures Menu's treats, as they are 95 % real meat -but they are very expensive so I use them for emergencies only, like "Oops, got to leave for training class in 5 minutes and have no sausages at home!") I use cheese, ham, chicken, liver -for even the tiniest of tiny toy pups sliced chicken or ham can be torn into whatever size you want. Also sausages and hot dogs, the good old staple, can be cut just as small as you want. When we go to training class we always have two tubs of food with us, one for the Malinois and one for the Papillon, so they each have theirs cut to a suitable size. :) I try to switch types every time as well so it's always new and exciting. I tend to keep liver back for the super high value events i.e. first show and similar.

Cheese is another good one, cut into little pea-sized pieces. I use Edam as it's slightly more pungent and best of all, doesn't crumble like cheddar. Liver cake is always a good favourite.

Sausage always makes my roxy sick.  I used cheese cubes as a puppy, some cheap little meat chew sticks that were about an inch wide, flat and easy to break off as an ongoing lower value, and made sardine cake for high value.

I have to say favorites of our dogs and high value are frankfurters, sardine and oatcakes (homemade and can be cut to any size you like) and liver cake!  both aside from the liver cake smelling the house out are easy to make :)

The best thing to do is not let them get them all the time and to mix it up a bit - Cheese, carrot, ham, cooked liver, cooked leftover roast meet again chopped up - think its all about variable rewarding both in value and amount once behaviour is  :)

Tiny bits of mature cheddar or very thin sliver of pepperami, both have high taste and smell in a small portion.

So are all these things OK for a 7 week old puppy?  I thought you had to be careful - I did look at the shop treats but they mostly said from 3 months -

The more different types of food your dog gets used to from an early age, the better. I have always found that those that are fed on a limited variety are far more likely to get upset stomachs from something new, than those that are given a big variety as early as possible. With a new pup, every time we go to a new place (training classes, town centre, train station, bus stop, vets etc etc -all the places we visit to socialise) out comes the sausages or similar and I actually say to the pup "This is one of these special places were you get nice treats!" -the idea being they will associate new situations and places with something nice.

Chicken might be the best with a very tiny puppy, I remember taking one of mine to her first puppy class at 10 or 12 weeks, and because I'd been giving her loads of (tiny) pieces of cheese and so on, it was all a bit too much rich stuff and she threw up later on! Chicken is a bit more bland, though still cut it into the smallest pieces you can manage so as not to overload the little tummy.

I'm not a great fan of treats for training - I prefered a toy particularly if other dogs were in the area. I certainly wouldn't feed any processed meat or cheese - bad enough for humans so equally bad in salt etc for a small puppy :) If you think of a puppy/dog weighing 5kg and a human weighing 65kg (around 10st) - the human is 13 times heavier than the puppy !! Add up all the treats you are giving and multiply by 13 ..................

I want to train to a clicker first of all - that needs treats - a toy comes in later really - I am certainly going to use different toys too - tug and retrieve.  As Marianne says - going to new places, new experiences wants something nice associated with it - and with a small pup there isn't the option to put them down on the floor to play - only to a certain extent can you do tuggy on your lap.  I intend taking him up the town and sitting on the seat to get used to traffic as soon as he has had time to get used to our home and garden.  The next few weeks are going to be busy - and I am not waiting for his vaccinations to get him out and about - just being ultra careful.   I need treats to give him when I get him used to grooming etc - so the smaller the better and the easier on his stomach.  Will have to get some chicken pieces cooked then.

Add the tiny exciting treats (sausage, cheese, ham etc) to other more boring, plain, ones and stick them all in the same airtight box.  The plain stuff absorbs much of the smell, and some of the taste, of the others but reduces the calorific intake and the overall richness.  Laughing dog do a nice plain biscuit or Bonios break up quite well.

If you are going to use meat then leave it out to dry overnight after cooking to make it easier to handle. Finally don't forget that you can also include some apple and carrots too.  The apple will go brown and the carrots  a bit bendy but your pup won't mind :)

PS Star training treats from Fish4Dogs are a very good size for pups and you can buy them in little tubs which is useful

"I'm not a great fan of treats for training - I preferred a toy particularly if other dogs were in the area."

I've been a trainer for 30 years now, running puppy training classes for 13 years and you'll find that the vast majority of dogs respond far better to food than toys at this stage, especially in a public place where they may not yet feel confident enough to play. Also, food can be given at any stage in and during an exercise without breaking off whereas a toy will stop/interrupt the behaviour completely. Food is also less disruptive, as it can be given calmly/discretely, than a load of owners all throwing/squeaking their toys which can distract/intimidate other pups. The other thing is that most pet owners are not very good at getting their dogs to play! I show them that if they move the toy away from the dog (rather than waving it annoyingly in their face), make it wriggle and actually throw it for the dog they are more likely to get a good response.

I do strongly recommend to people at my club that they get their dog into fetching/scenting games during exercise so the dog will see them as far more interesting than other dogs/people etc and we go through this in class. Every couple of sessions I will also get them to bring and use a toy so they can learn how to get the play/teach the 'give' and see what other toys excite their dog.

Please don't think I'm anti-toy for training. I spend years using toys to get the heelwork/attitude in training that I want from my own dogs but the difference is that I'm prepared for it to take a long time (as I'm looking for perfection, even if I don't get it lol) and I have a better idea of what to do (sorry if that sounds immodest lol).    

I was going to say much the same as marisa. Most dogs will need to gain a lot of extra confidence before they feel able to play with a toy away from home. Treats however will always go down. :) I always see it as a great sign once a dog will play with toys away from home, but there are dogs that never will. (Fair enough if all dogs were Golden Retrievers or Labradors, then we could probably ALL use toys! :) )  Others will take months to feel ready to play with a toy away from home -and you must be able to reward them during that time. Then there's the dogs that don't EVER play with toys whether at home or not.

I honestly would not worry too much about processed cheese and meat as treats. Having had one dog live to 15 who had been fed it as treats (and a toydog at that) from an early age, living to past 15 despite a bad heart (genetic), and currently having a 13 year old who also has had similar treats all her life, I certainly don't see it causing problems.

Thank you Marianne. The other thing I should have said was that a lot of the early training - sit, down, stay, wait, stand, emergency stop etc - is easier to teach by luring the dog with a titbit. You want a certain calmness for these exercises which a toy doesn't generally induce. Also, some dogs will 'sheep' the toy or be so obsessed that they can't think of anything else. I have a collie who is so toy mad that although it is great for getting the energy I want, it will probably make some of the exercises harder too (eg Distance Control, Scent etc). He came to me as a 10 month old and whereas with a pup I would be using a mixture of toy and play in a training session, he doesn't want ANY food at all when he is training (and I use roast chicken, cocktail sausage, beef, cheese etc).

I've been watching some of the Kikopup training vids on YouTube. One of the first clicker training ones she uses, is holding a piece of food in a clenched hand to teach the puppy not to mug you for food. You offer the clenched hand with the titbit to the dog who immediately tries to "break into" your hand. Eventually, when it realises it doesn't work, it pauses and backs away a little, that's when you click and treat. After that starts to work well, you move onto getting the pup to look at you before clicking and treating. Seems good to me, but not sure that would work so well with a toy.

That's one of the things I teach as food manners. The other is to have a titbit on the floor and it is only given to the pup when they do not try to help themselves to it (ie they show restraint/self-control).

That's all good advice - I was surprised when I searched that some of the questions hadn't been asked before - (I have asked several)  I got my puppy yesterday and he loves the tug toy - however I can see he needs to settle in a bit and get a routine going before I do too much treat training.  He didn't eat much yesterday so I am just playing today although I am establishing some rules - eg he sits before he gets his tuggy toy not jump up all over me and he doesn't get his crate door open until he is quiet!  Thankfully he was happy to go into his crate and sleep when he was tired.   He is quite happy - the only thing that upsets him is Meg barking (she has a much deeper bark then his mum) and my grandson shouted.  He comes running back to me then and hides around my legs.  I am just having a breather while he sleeps - it is like having a young child about again.  Quick get some jobs done!!! 

Sounds like fun. Can't wait for my pup to come. (Sat here green with envy)

I'm another fan of variety (partly as I'm too disorganised to have the same things ready!).

I generally use dried sprats, cocktail sausage or cheese for the big girl, with Nature Menu, fish4dogs treats as a back up.

Baby girl gets sprats and cold roast chicken mainly, with liver cake for outdoor recall work.

My dog walker has bought a cheap (£35) dehydrator from Amazon. She has inspired me to get one myself as you can pick up packets of liver, and sliced meats etc for fairly cheap in supermarkets and they make really clean, easy to cut up and store treats.

Liver, sprats, chicken etc etc are all really easy to dehydrate and nice and smelly, too so you can grab your pups attention. Obviously for her it saves a huge amount as she has so many dogs to walk and she also does training with them, but even a puppy owner could benefit from such a small layout.

I know quite a few people who've bought one of these and are now making their own dog treats. I've resisted up till now but may invest in one.

Some of the people are vegetarian but don't mind handling the raw goods, others get someone else to do that bit! A bonus is that the dehydrator can be put in an outbuilding (garage etc with a power source) to avoid any smells while it does its job overnight.

I'd be keen to experiment a bit, maybe try mixing minced tripe with potato flour and rolling it out thinly before drying to make an irresistible smelly treat.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrew-James-Dehydrator-Adjustable-Temperature/dp/B009DIFMXK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365632156&sr=8-1&keywords=dehydrator

She has put strips of tripe into it to make dried tripe sticks. Great for a recreational chew :)

She has put strips of tripe into it to make dried tripe sticks. Great for a recreational chew :)

You can also dry stuff out in the oven on a really low temperature for several hours - achieves the same as a dehydrator.

That is my current technique and is great when you have the time, if you have a young pup the chances are you'll be home the vast majority of the day anyway so this would be a really good way to do it!

> I've been a trainer for 30 years now, running puppy training classes for 13 years and you'll find that the vast majority of dogs respond far better to food than toys at this stage

I've tried & tried & tried to get my dog interested in toys so I have another form of reward/interaction, but he is just not interested. He did, as a pup, enjoy playing tuggy but only with our other dog. If I really wind him up (game of play-fighting with lots of noise) and keep swishing a toy in his face, he will eventually grab the toy off me but only to chuck it away :( Some dogs just don't 'do' toys!

Anyway, sorry if I've gone off topic.

Buster only ever had his kibble as training treats for the first 9 months - then started using tiny little cubes of cheese. Later on I added in a varity of things. There are some dog treats called 'Allsorts' (I think that's the name), they are all different shapes, the're really stinky and allthough far to big as training treats as they come, they can be chopped up into small cubes. Somthing I have been using recently is dried cat food (eg. Go Cat). It's has a strongish smell and the pieces are very small so no need for chopping up before using.

Usually my dog-walking-coat has a pocket full of a mixture of cheese, cat biscuists and sausage (I cook extra when we have sausages so I have some to chop up for treats). The sauasage is an 'ultimate' reward, the cat biscuits are low-value and the cheese is a good all-rounder :) (I can leave food in my coat pocket for weeks and the manky pieces don't upset his belly, in fact he likes the treats when I can no longer tell what on earth they are but the ranking system is lost then! )

I can leave food in my coat pocket for weeks and the manky pieces don't upset his belly, in fact he likes the treats when I can no longer tell what on earth they are  but the ranking system is lost then! )

I do this too, tend to find they go hard and dry rather than off.  A word of advise though, don't wash your coat without checking!  Also don't leave it in nose range.  I have a number of holes in my pockets as a result of this!

> Also don't leave it in nose range.  I have a number of holes in my pockets as a result of this!

LOL, Cheeky monkeys! :-D

> A bonus is that the dehydrator can be put in an outbuilding (garage etc with a power source) to avoid any smells while it does its job overnight.

I am sitting here so wishing I read your post properly before I started making dried tripe sticks in our spare bedroom :-( ... bleugh!!

" If I really wind him up (game of play-fighting with lots of noise) and keep swishing a toy in his face, he will eventually grab the toy off me but only to chuck it away :-("

I'm not surprised. No offence, but it's very annoying (and usually a complete turn-off) for a dog to have a toy waved in his face. Do it to yourself and you will see what I mean lol. But you're right, some dogs definitely don't 'do' toys and no amount of experimentation with different textures/squeaks/movement will interest them.

I have a dog who is so-so about toys, and disinterested in treats completely! As a pup I could lure him with treats into sit/stay/down etc etc. Now he knows these techniques when I want him to perform them in a highly distracting situation I will use a kong tennis ball to get his attention. He has always been very hard to motivate. He is a GSD and motivated by praise and attention, which makes it challenging to teach new behaviors but is brilliant for re-enforcing behaviors he has already learned. As a puppy I really really struggled with him, the brief bit of agility we did was great as he would do the jumps and tunnels knowing that a fuss was waiting for him at the end.

He will now focus for a tennis ball (and I throw it to him to catch once he has done what I have asked) but that has taken a long time and still requires me to act like a bit of a loon!

>I'm not surprised. No offence, but it's very annoying (and usually a complete turn-off) for a dog to have a toy waved in his face. Do it to yourself and you will see what I mean lol.

I am not a dog and do not have any hidden drives that can be brought to the surface by a fast-moving toy near my chops ;)

let me ellaborate. He has no interest in playing with toys on his own, but will get me to hold a toy for him so he can shred it, whilst he is laying down.  I know my dog, I know that he needs to be 'revved up' in order to actually do anything mildly energetic that does not involve eating, so to ecourage him to interct with me energectically with a toy, swishing the toy around in front of him gets him interested enough to grab it, but he refuses to play tuggy with me, he'll either let go so I have the toy or snatch it and chuck it away.

He will happily play-fight with me, getting him to grab the toy instead of my arm* is hardly me trying to niff him off - it's trying to get another way to motivate/reward/engage him and a suitable way to play with people, becasue as it is, the way he plays, I will not allow anybody other than me or my husband to play with him. If he would grab & hold the toy he could play with any stranger he meets, to enhance his on-going socialsation.

Don't be under the impression that I am mis-reading him/the situation and winding him up in a way that gets on his nerves - I'm not that cruel (or stupid enough to try to annoy a 200lb dog!).

*I have allowed this for the purpose of using his natural instinct to grab & hold as way to train/practice his bite-force inhibition.

Sometimes we must act like an idiot in order to motivate our dog, that does not mean the motivational tactic is idiotc :)

Just to say that the tripe sticks I made that I nearly gassed the entire household with, were a huge success. They are indistinguishable from the ones you buy, except for the price. I made them about 6" long, but I guess you could cut them into dice size first to use for training treats. I'll definitely be making them again in our dehydrator, just not in the spare bedroom!

I'm lazy I buy my treats in from a lady who makes tasty dog treats, they are not expensive and my dogs will do anything for them. :)