When you spend much time working with your dogs, even just reinforcing the day-to-day stuff, you blow through a lot of treats. In addition to our regular work with the boys, we always take treats on walks with Lucas and Cooper to work on reactivity. We’re also doing a ton more training in the house since we’re working on getting them to behave around the cat (who, incidentally, loves dog treats).
We’re using a ton of treats. And dog treats aren’t cheap! Especially the soft, chewy, healthy training treats.
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So, we’ve been looking for ways to cut costs while still having a ton of treats at our fingertips for ongoing work.
Here are three cheap and easy DIY training treats that you probably already have in your fridge:
Turkey hot dogs: As we all know, 10 tiny treats are way more valuable to a dog than one big treat. You can cut a single hotdog into 100 pea-sized pieces, getting tremendous value out of an inexpensive product. I’ve heard some dogs prefer their hot dogs to be heated up… my guys don’t seem to notice a difference.
Strawberries: For a healthy option, cut a strawberry into 6 or 8 tiny pieces. Lucas is very picky about fruits and vegetables (basically, he hates them), but he loves strawberries. My guess is it’s the sweetness, but whatever works! The only caveat here is that, if you’re training on the go with a treat bag, line it with beeswax paper or similar first so that the strawberry juice doesn’t leave a mess.
Canned tuna: If you thoroughly drain the can and stick it in the fridge overnight, you’ll find that the tuna breaks into tiny little chunky flakes. These are perfect bite-sized training treats, and since it’s super smelly, most dogs will work extra hard to get that fishy goodness! This is a perfect solution for dogs who have protein allergies, too! Coop can’t have chicken or beef, which is in seriously every single store-bought training treat. This is the perfect alternative for him.
One thing that didn’t make the cut: Carrots. While carrots are awesome treats for dogs, they’re less awesome as training treats because your dog has to stop what he’s doing to chew chew chew chew the little pieces of carrot. You’re going to lose focus with all that chewing! So use carrots as an “after work” reward for your pup but not for training.
What do you use as training treats? Have you found ways to save money on this stuff?
If you’re looking for more fast, fun, and cheap treat ideas, check out these two simple DIY dog treat recipes!
Pamela | Something Wagging This Way Comes
Cutting up strawberries is a little too much work for me. That’s why I prefer blueberries as a training treat.
I’ve thought about tuna because it’s nice and smelly. But I didn’t know your trick about refrigerating it after draining to get it to flake nicely. I’ll have to try that.
I published my list of faves a while back: http://www.somethingwagging.com/12-cheap-dog-treats-that-wont-kill-your-dog/
Maggie
For some reason, blueberries fall under the category of “Lucas spits it on the floor.” I guess I should’ve qualified: These are successful for my picky eater! 🙂
As a follow-up to the tuna thing, Jodi at Kol’s Notes suggested sardines, which I’ll definitely give a try! Anything soft and smelly that doesn’t require time spent crunching is worth a shot to me!
Married with Dawgs
I marinate my carrots in bacon. Fools em long enough for me to get about 5 minutes of training in before they start realizing that they are in fact not eating bacon. 🙂
I hate to admit it because I’m all about healthy snacks for dogs but dang it if this doesn’t work: Cheese Whiz. I don’t even wanna know the crap in it and we only use it very sparingly but there is literally nothing the dogs won’t do for a squirt of Cheese Whiz. It’s also the perfect treat to dispense on walks where you need their continual focus to get past another dog.
Maggie
Oh, my gosh! Stand proud behind your Cheese Whiz! 🙂 We use it with Lucas because it’s the most effective treat when he’s in reactive mode. It works wonders, especially in high-stress situations like the vet’s office where he’s prone to break down and avoid food altogether. For us, these other treats are for less or no stress times so that we can save a little money because, for all it’s non-food-chemical-makeup, squeeze cheese is expensive!!
Doreen @doggiesandstuff
The girls LOVE turkey hotdogs. I typically use those to give them medication! Strawberries is another, but the girls have been on a blueberry kick lately! I haven’t tried tuna! Thanks for the tips!
Maggie
Good idea to use the hotdogs for the medication! Any trick to sneak in those pills! 🙂
Jan K
The dogs get even more excited when I open a can of tuna than the cats do! But it never occurred to me to use it for a training treat, so that tip about putting it in the fridge is great. We’ve tried blueberries like Pamela too, but Kobi is the only one who will eat them. I’ll have to try strawberries also. I also sometimes break up a slice of American cheese into small pieces. I’m not sure how cost effective that is though.
Maggie
We use a ton of squeeze cheese for high-intensity situations, but the cost effectiveness is definitely the issue… The cans are like $5 each! Nuts! It’s worth it when we have to take Lucas to the vet, for instance, but I’m all about cost savings when we’re just working around the house or neighborhood!
Julia
I`ve also found some useful tips about dog feeding guideline and I can say, that your DIY training treats are quite healtful for the dogs, as every dog should be feeded in a right way with a natural balanced food!
Cynthia
try these for squeeze cheese! SO cheap!!
http://nourishingjoy.com/homemade-cheez-whiz-homemade-velveeta-real-food/