Although some people advise against it, dog treats work wonders when they’re used as a training incentive. Dog training treats just have a way of making the impossible reaction almost instant. You won’t be able to treat your dog every time it does something that you want it to, and that’s what this article is about: weaning your dog of the tool that helped train it for so long.

At the point in which your dog faithfully follows your commands without error, it’s time to start weaning the treats. Completely dropping dog treats from the program isn’t the best idea because it might give the dog the idea that it did something wrong. So you can begin decreasing the number of treats and restricting them for reactions that are of a high grade. You’ll want to in other words, raise the bar, and treat a dog for quickly and neatly executed reactions instead of just any type of reactions.

As an example, you could treat a dog after, and only after, the dog quickly sits, or only after dog lies in a down position without barking. Eventually the dog will follow your commands without anticipation of a treat at all, and when this occurs, you can proudly say that you have a well trained canine for a pet.

Chances are your pet will continue to expect dog treats of some sort, but this is no different from when we accomplish a task and want some sort of acknowledgement. Just remember that the reward needn’t be a treat. You can easily replace dog training treats with praise!