How to Use Treats in Dog Training: A Practical Guide for Puppies and Adult Dogs

What makes a good dog training treat?

A good training treat does three things. It is small, so your dog can eat dozens in a session without filling up. It is quick to eat, so you are back to training in a second or two instead of standing around while your dog chews. And it is exciting, because a reward only works if your dog actually wants it.

That is the whole recipe. Everything else in this guide, from reward timing to treat pouches, builds on those three points.

We are a family owned Australian pet treat bakery, and we have been baking dog training treats since 2014. The questions customers ask us are nearly always the same. How do I actually use treats in training? How many is too many? And which treat for which job? This guide answers all of it, for puppies and adult dogs, using guidance from Australian animal welfare and veterinary bodies where a rule exists, and our own bakery experience where it does not.

Why treats work: the case for reward-based training

Treat training is not a trick or a bribe. It is the method Australia's peak animal welfare and veterinary bodies recommend. RSPCA Australia describes reward-based training as the most humane and effective way of training dogs and addressing unwanted behaviours. The idea is simple: set your dog up to succeed, then reward the good behaviour the moment it happens. Rewards can be a food treat, a favourite toy or warm verbal praise, and behaviour that gets rewarded gets repeated.

The Australian Veterinary Association takes the same position. Its policy states that training of dogs is best achieved through positive reinforcement, and that punishment and negative reinforcement should not be used in attempts to change a dog's behaviour. The AVA notes that positive reinforcement is correlated with a reduction in behaviour problems and is less stressful for the animal.

Food sits at the centre of this method for a practical reason: almost every dog is motivated by it, it is fast to deliver and easy to repeat. Treats are the workhorse reward, with toys and praise mixed in.

Timing is everything: reward within the moment

Dogs connect a reward with whatever they were doing when it arrived. Not what they did ten seconds ago, and not what you were hoping they would do. RSPCA Australia's example of teaching a dog not to jump makes the point: the instant all four paws hit the ground, the reward arrives. Reward the sit while the bottom is on the floor and you are teaching sit. Reward it after your dog has bounced back up and you are teaching the bounce.

In practice, that means three habits we drum into every new treat customer:

• Have the treat ready before you ask. Digging through a bag while your dog holds a perfect drop wastes the moment. This is what a treat pouch is for, and we cover pouches further down.
• Mark the moment. A short, consistent word like "yes" said at the exact instant of the behaviour buys you a second or two to deliver the treat. The word tells your dog precisely which behaviour earned it.
• Use treats your dog can swallow fast. A treat that takes thirty seconds to chew breaks the rhythm of the session. This is exactly why we bake tiny treats like our Chicken Micro Bones, they disappear in a second and you are straight back to work.

High-value versus everyday treats, and when to use each

Not all rewards are equal in your dog's eyes, and good trainers use that deliberately. RSPCA Australia points out that rewards vary in value: dry food or kibble tends to be lower value for most dogs, while soft meaty food such as cooked chicken is often high value. Its advice is to use high-value rewards for the challenging stuff, such as recall under distraction, and lower value rewards to reinforce behaviours your dog already knows, like sit or drop. Training works best when the value of the reward outweighs whatever else is competing for your dog's attention.

Here is how we think about the ladder in our own bakery range:

• Everyday treats are for easy reps at home with no distractions: practising sit, drop and stay in the lounge room. Small baked treats like our Little Chicken Bites or Veggie Tubes are perfect here. Interesting enough to work for, not so exciting that your dog loses its head.
• High-value treats are single-ingredient meaty treats with strong smell and big flavour. Think Lamb Liver, Kangaroo Jerky Cubes or Chicken Hearts. Save these for the dog park, recall practice, vet visits and anything your dog finds hard. Liver in particular is the classic high-value trainer, and we cover why in our guide to whether liver treats are good for dogs.

One warning from our own experience: hand out the high-value stuff for lying on the couch and it stops being special. Keep a clear gap between everyday and jackpot treats and training sessions feel like payday.

Treat size and daily moderation: small treats, honest maths

Training involves a lot of repetitions, which means a lot of treats, so size and moderation matter. The guideline most vets work from comes from VCA Animal Hospitals, a large overseas veterinary group in North America: about 90 per cent of your dog's daily calorie intake should come from their complete and balanced food, with the remaining 10 per cent available for treats and snacks. There is no separate Australian percentage that replaces this, so treat it as a sensible ceiling and ask your Australian vet what is right for your individual dog, especially if they are small, senior or watching their waistline.

From the bakery side, here is the practical guidance we give our own customers:

• Go smaller than feels natural. For training, a treat only needs to be big enough to taste. Somewhere around pea-sized suits most small dogs, and a fingernail-sized piece suits most big dogs. Your dog is rewarded by the event, not the volume.
• Break bigger treats down. Most of our meaty treats snap or cut easily into training-sized pieces, so one Kangaroo Liver piece can become a handful of rewards.
• Count big sessions against dinner. On heavy training days, scale the food bowl back a little so the day's total stays honest. That is the same budgeting logic behind the 90 and 10 split.
• Watch the dog, not just the packet. If your dog is softening around the middle, shrink the treats before you shrink the training.

Puppy training treats: starting right

Puppies are learning machines. RSPCA Australia notes that puppies have a critical socialisation period from about 3 to 12 to 14 weeks of age, when they need positive experiences with different people, environments and other dogs, and it highly recommends reputable, high-quality puppy school classes. Treats are your best tool through this window: they let you pair new experiences, from car rides to nail clippers to strangers in hats, with something good.

For the treats themselves, our experience with puppy owners comes down to this:

• Tiny and easy to eat. Puppy mouths and puppy tummies are small. Micro-sized treats such as our Chicken Micro Bones 100g or Milk Crunchies with Chicken let you do plenty of reps without overloading a young stomach.
• Simple ingredients. Puppy digestion is still finding its feet, so plain, recognisable ingredients are the safe play. Introduce one new treat at a time so you can spot anything that disagrees with them.
• Short, happy sessions. A few minutes at a time, several times a day, beats one long drill. End while your puppy is still winning and still keen.

If your puppy is enrolled in puppy school, pack more treats than you think you need. A room full of other puppies is the biggest distraction they have ever faced, so this is high-value treat territory.

From lure to cue: how the treat leaves your hand

The most common worry we hear is "won't my dog only obey when I'm holding food?" Only if the treat never leaves your hand. Reward-based trainers avoid that trap with a simple progression, and it is the same one we use with our own dogs:

• Step 1, lure. Hold a treat at your dog's nose and move it so their body follows. Nose goes up, bottom goes down, that is a sit. Reward immediately.
• Step 2, fade the lure. After a handful of successful reps, make the same hand movement with no treat in your fingers. When your dog sits, reward from your other hand or your pouch. The hand signal is now doing the work.
• Step 3, add the word. Say "sit" just before the hand signal. With repetition the word alone triggers the behaviour.
• Step 4, reward after, not before. The treat now appears only after the behaviour is done, from a pouch or pocket, never waved in front as a bribe. Your dog learns the behaviour produces the reward, not that the sight of food produces the behaviour.

While a behaviour is still being learned, reward it every single time; RSPCA Australia notes that behaviour rewarded consistently gets offered more often. Once it is reliable, you can mix in praise and play as rewards and keep food for the best efforts, which keeps your dog guessing and keeps the behaviour strong.

Treat pouch practicalities

A treat pouch sounds like a minor accessory until you train with one. Then it becomes the difference between rewarding in one second and rewarding in six. Because timing is the whole game, we consider a pouch part of the kit, not an extra, which is why we put together our Dog Training Treat Pouch and Training Pack with treats included.

A few habits that make a pouch work harder for you:

• Load it before the session, with a mix of everyday treats and a few high-value surprises at the bottom.
• Wear it behind your hip, so your dog watches you rather than staring at the bag.
• Empty it after each session. Meaty treats belong back in their sealed packet, not living in the pouch.
• Keep a training leash with it, so five minutes of practice is a grab-and-go habit.

Matching our treats to the training job

Because we bake and make the lot ourselves, our training treats range covers every job in a session. Here is how we map it:

• Repetition work (tiny treats, lots of them): our Micro Bones in chicken, kangaroo and beef (from $7.95), plus the Little Bites family, including Little Fish Bites ($7.00) and Little Insect Protein Bites ($6.00). Small, fast to eat, made for high-rep sessions.
• High-value and jackpot moments: single-ingredient meaty treats such as Beef Liver ($9.95), Lamb Puff ($11.95), Kangaroo Lung Puff ($14.95) and Australian Fish Nibble ($13.95). Strong smell, big payoff, ideal for recall and hard environments.
• The end-of-session reward: after a big effort, a proper chew such as our Kangaroo Sticks 20cm or Beef Sticks 20cm ($15.95) lets your dog finish on a genuine jackpot and wind down.
• Sensitive tummies and lighter options: Bug Chews ($7.25) and our vegetarian Carrot Bon Bon ($5.00) give dogs with protein sensitivities a way to train like everyone else.
• Rewarding at mealtime: Beef Liver Sprinkles ($11.95) turn the dinner bowl itself into a reward for calm behaviour while you prepare it. If that idea appeals, our guide to dog food toppers goes deeper.

Every treat above is one we make or pack ourselves as an Australian family business, the same treats we use on our own dogs.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• RSPCA Australia Knowledgebase: What is reward-based dog training and why does the RSPCA support it? (updated 15 Jun 2022): https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/what-is-reward-based-dog-training-and-why-does-the-rspca-support-it/
• RSPCA Australia Knowledgebase: Is it important to train my dog? What sort of training would you recommend? (updated 14 Dec 2025): https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/is-it-important-to-train-my-dog-what-sort-of-training-would-you-recommend/
• Australian Veterinary Association policy: The use of punishment and negative reinforcement in dog training (ratified 5 Nov 2021): https://www.ava.com.au/policy-advocacy/policies/companion-animals-dog-behaviour/the-use-of-punishment-and-negative-reinforcement-in-dog-training/
• VCA Animal Hospitals: Dog Treats (Grant, Williams, Downing): https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/dog-treats
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