When you are training a dog, there’s always been some controversy over whether you should give treats such as MilkBones, dog biscuits, and so on. Giving treats to a dog when you are training him does have a couple of advantages as well as disadvantages. Any confusion that you might have would hopefully be cleared up with this article.

Now, “Of course! Give the dog treats so he’ll obey you. After all, you won’t get his attention if you don’t give him anything he enjoys” is what some people would say. On the other hand, some other people will say, “No, don’t give the dog treats! He’ll be only obeying you for the food.”

Here’s the truth: both opinions stated above are correct. What the dog needs is some incentive to obey you, right? But also, what if they dog does begin to work only for the food? Now what? He doesn’t really have any reason to obey you if he is not hungry and does not really want the food.

So should you use dog treats? The answer is YES, but in moderation . Don’t give the dog a biscuit every single time he obeys you; instead, sometimes just praise him excessively instead. Also, don’t make the “prize” too big or you’ll be overfeeding him. For example, break a biscuit in half or even cut it into three pieces so you’re not feeding your dog too much when you train him.

Here’s another idea to consider when training young puppies. Just use adult dog food pellets and don’t feed them biscuits at all. For the young puppy’s tiny mouth, the pellets are big enough to be a treat but small enough that it won’t overfeed the puppy.

Aside from this, it is also important for you to remember that training your dog to obey you only for food as a reward is a bad idea. Although you might not consciously be doing this, it’s easy to slip into the habit of just rewarding your dog with a treat every single time he does anything remotely good.

You would want him to obey you because you are the master and because he wants to please you and not because you have a treat so you would want him to think of you as the “strong master,” or the “alpha” over him. You can do this by praising him a lot in a high voice when he does something good and in a deep, “you’re in trouble” voice when he does something bad. It is important that he is able to distinguish between the voices and figure out that a high voice means “good” and low means “bad” and whenever you do the low voice, you are not pleased with him.

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