So do y’all have treats on you basically 24/7?

[procakes223]

We brought home our 18 month old rescue dog last Saturday! I’ve been reading this sub for years so mentally I felt prepared but of course it’s totally different in practice. He is generally well-behaved and gentle but doesn’t have any formal training and needs to start from square 1…. And he’s a nightmare on a leash.

The amount of times I find myself needing (wanting?) to reinforce the good behavior he’s doing is staggering. Should I be giving small treats throughout the day for these?? I feel like I’m just a nonstop stream of treats! I could feed him a whole bag of chicken in one day with how fast I could go through it sometimes. And these are tiny treats!Basically I want to know if this is normal or if I’m on the right track!

For example: rewarding when he’s nicely settled and relaxed, when he successfully does a sit/stay before passing through a door, calmly waiting in bed while I cook dinner. Outside and he tries to eat a rock? Need to distract him with something higher value.

I’ve watched a lot of Kikopup videos and love how much she focuses on reinforcement. Of course, that’s a 5-minute video and in real life it doesn’t play out like that. I just wanna do the right thing!

 

[desperate80]

@procakes223 Yup, I do! I have a large dog treat pouch that holds ~3.5 cups of kibble, and I put it on in the morning when I get up, and take the treat pouch off when I go to bed.

 

[taliporos]

@desperate80 I don’t quite do this but it’s on me 100% of the time when I’m out of the house and I have treat containers placed in strategic locations throughout the house.

When my pup was younger and needed more frequent, faster reinforcement I wore it more often in the house too.

 

[prhasda]

@taliporos I had so many treat jars scattered around the house for the first year and a half or so. I actually need to refill a few… they’re not as necessary as they once were, but they still help.

 

[procakes223]

@desperate80 Is the 3.5 cups their daily amount of kibble? Or do you also feed them regular meals?

 

[sobbret]

@procakes223 I used to just use my girls daily food allowance for rewards/games/training/enrichment because otherwise, as you're learning, she would eat way too much

But yes...I do still carry treats on me 24/7 and have several "reward stations" around the house.

 

[desperate80]

@procakes223 The dog in question, my Lab, eats 4 to 4.3 cups of kibble per day, depending which flavor of his dog food I purchased. So the treat pouch doesn't QUITE hold the full amount of my dog's daily kibble, but it actually works out perfectly because I take my dogs out to pee at 6 am and give my Lab 1 cup of kibble then, in his bowl, as an early breakfast to tide him over so he's not starving (Labs are always hungry!) while I go back to bed for a few hours. So, really, I only NEED the treat pouch to hold 3.3 cups of kibble at most, which it does!

I use a different, smaller treat pouch for my small dog's daily kibble allotment, but the little dude is a 7-pound dog and his daily kibble allotment is measured in TABLESPOONS, so his full amount of kibble DEFINITELY fits in the smaller treat pouch! I do less training with my small dog, though, so rather than wearing two treat pouches around my waist at once (how would that even work??), I leave the smaller one sitting around the house where it's still within easy access.

 

[hobie21se]

@desperate80 3.5 cups of kibble would be an entire week's worth of food for my dog, it's the top reason I'm jealous of big dog owners. I have my teeny pouch of 2 tablespoons of kibble, and that has to last us all day.

 

[desperate80]

@hobie21se I do sympathize! My little dog weighs 7 pounds and he only gets 3-4 tablespoons per day, depending whether I'm purposefully trying to fatten him up in the fall so he is less cold during the winter (4 tablespoons then), or take the excess weight off of him in the spring (3 tablespoons). How big is your pup, that they only eat TWO tablespoons?!?! I feed Purina Pro Plan small breed to my little dude, so he's eating about 100 calories a day when he gets 4 tablespoons of kibble.

 

[hobie21se]

@desperate80 Oh he gets 5 tablespoons per day, it's just 2 that I hold back for the treat pouch. And then there's one for the snuffle mat, so I feel completely ridiculous measuring out one *tablespoon* of food for his actual food bowl. (We use Solid Gold Mighty Mini, he loves it and I love that the kibs are so tiny. The store gave us some free samples of "small breed" foods where his serving would be like 4 kibbles per meal, that was too silly for me.)

 

[xxyn]

@hobie21se Cheese shreds are your friend

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@desperate80 oh that's GENIUS. where did you get it?

 

[desperate80]

@imagebeastmarkbeast I bought it from Ruffwear! Here's the link: https://ruffwear.com/products/home-trail-hip-pack

 

[jobar]

@desperate80 Yep, my pup's about 18 months, and every coat, jacket and hoodie has treats in the pocket. Dogs at Home Depot look at me funny. They know!

 

[klonopin48]

@procakes223 I do! I have a fanny pack that I use to hold a bunch of kibble and I keep that on me whenever I’m out with my pup, and if we’re working on something I know is difficult where I need high value rewards, I bring a big ziplock full of what I feel is way too much than I could
use in a session - but most of the time I end up using them all anyways

If you’re feeding a TON of treats throughout the day you can always try to feed a little less at mealtime and make sure you’re trying to use healthier treats like single ingredient freeze-dried chicken or beef liver, and try to avoid people-food unless it’s as a MEGA high reward. I pull out the cheese when working around dog distractions!

As you train eventually the rate of reward can decrease if you’ve trained your clicker or marker word well enough to where the dog knows they’ve done the right thing and will be rewarded eventually, but it’s always wise to have some sort of reward on you just in case you run into a situation where you need it.

 

[jennhickman06]

@klonopin48 Plus one for the treat fanny pack. I used one when we first got our dog and didn't trust her recall.

Now not so much because she's a good listener now and has gotten used to listening to us!

 

[db4]

@jennhickman06 How and where did you start the recall? My pup is good on the leash and listens, but I'm terrified he'll run off. He did really good playing fetch in the back lot. However, there's a deep cliff and the river, so I only allowed it for 2 mins if that.

If he sees a bunny squirrel or something, then he'll drag me. He literally felt like the cartoon last night when he saw a groundhog. He was pulling me on my heels. He is a hearding/hunting dog, aussie, and Mountain Cur.

 

[jennhickman06]

@db4 In a park with a long line.

I also got a bunch of small treats and held out two different ones at the same time to see which one she picked and if she had a preference/favorite.

If there's one nearby, I recommend going to a park that's fenced where you can close all the gates to practice with no line. We also happened to have a few dog parks in our area that are pretty spacious where we could walk around and see how far she would stray before coming back.

Our dog's small (22lbs), so I can't help you with the pulling. I'm very small myself, but I can out muscle her by standing still.

 

[constantine1488]

@db4 I bought a retractable leash for my mastiff to start training recall. She’s getting the hang of it.

However she is exceptional, one of those dogs that makes you think you can totally handle another. Chases the cat but not much else, and doesn’t really have thoughts behind her eyes.

 

[procakes223]

@constantine1488 She sounds wonderful