Training treats are a great reward to use when training your puppy. Using treats can make your puppy learn new habits quicker than without offering rewards.
Many people want to know the best dog training treats for puppies so you can be sure you’re giving your puppy the right type. In this dog training treat buyer’s guide, we’re going to look at the criteria you’d want to consider for your treats and the best brands to try.
We’re also going to look at a few simple training tips to help make your training sessions more successful. By the time you finish this article, you’ll know everything there is to know about the best dog training treats for puppies.
Training treats are small, bite-size snacks that you can use to reward your pet during training sessions. Puppies respond better to learning and performing tricks if they know they’ll get something yummy for their efforts.
A pro tip for training your puppy is to schedule your training sessions between meal times so your puppy will be hungry, and therefore more eager to get their snacks.
Types of behaviors you can use treats to train for your puppy include:
You can also use treats as a way to keep your pet occupied. A bored or lonely puppy can become destructive. Adding a few snacks into a puzzle ball such as the Pet Zone IQ Treat ball or a chew toy like the Kong can keep your pet busy and happy for hours.
Pet parents typically find more success with training their dogs using soft treats over hard ones like doggie biscuits.
Hard snacks leave behind crumbs, which your pet may be eager to eat before returning his attention to getting new snacks. If using hard treats, look for small pieces that can quickly be eaten in one bite.
You also want to make sure you choose bite-size pieces. Training sessions should be quick and constant, so you don’t want your pet to spend more time eating one snack before working for the next.
Smaller pieces also keep your pet from getting full before the session is complete. Be sure to use healthy treats, so your pet doesn’t become obese. Pay attention to the serving size for your puppy’s weight and breed.
Smelly treats work better during intense training sessions. Even though your puppy may not see the snack, he will smell it, making him more likely to perform the command.
Most strong smelling treats are high value, which means your dog will have a higher preference for these snacks over others.
High-value snacks are usually moist or freeze-dried. They can also be pieces of human-grade food. Whatever treat you choose has to be something your pet doesn’t get during mealtimes.
High-value treats are great during intense training sessions where you’re introducing a new command or if you’ll be competing for your pet’s attention, such as in training classes.
You can also use snacks during socialization and proactive exposure training. High-value treats also work great for behavior modification.
Examples of high-value treats include small pieces of cooked chicken or liverwurst, a spoonful of peanut butter, hard-boiled eggs, or cheese.
Medium value treats are usually semi-moist or dry treats that include ingredients your pet doesn’t get at other times during the day.
You will use medium value treats more often than high value treats for training. Once your pet has gotten used to a command, you can switch to a medium value snack to continue reinforcing the behavior.
Medium value treats are also useful for giving your dog good behavior throughout the day, without training sessions.
Low-value treats should consist of foods your pet is used to eating, such as pieces of their dry kibble. You will use low value treats to help wean your puppy off high and medium value treats.
Typically, low-value treats are small pieces of dried treats rather than moist or freeze-dried. You can also use these treats to reward for good behavior throughout the day.
Now that you know about the different types of treats, let’s look at some of the best dog training treats for puppies. We’ll provide nutritional value, ingredients, and what category of value for the treat.
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Vital Essentials makes training a breeze with their freeze-dried treats, available in multiple protein flavors, including salmon, beef liver, turkey giblets, chicken, and tripe (a type of beef).
This high value treats come in bite-size pieces of real meat that have been frozen in raw form to lock in all the flavor and nutrients without any of the mess.
Each treat promotes digestive health and boosts your pet’s immune system with a healthy dose of probiotics, digestive enzymes, and calcium.
They’re also gluten and grain-free, so they’re perfectly safe for dogs with allergies or sensitivities. There are zero fillers, flavorings, antibiotics, hormones, or rendered animal by-products.
The green beef tripe dog treats the nutritional value of 155 kcal/oz with 49% protein, 36% fat, 2.2% fiber, and 8% moisture.
Wellness Training Treats are medium value, small, bite-size cookies in lamb and salmon or chicken and carrots flavors. The soft texture makes these treats perfect for training.
These snacks are grain-free, with no artificial flavors or colors, or common allergens such as soy or corn. If your pet has a food allergy, these treats can be the perfect solution.
In addition to real animal protein as the first ingredient, these treats also contain beneficial ingredients like blueberries, sweet potatoes, apples, flaxseed, and carrots.
These snacks’ nutritional value includes 14% protein, 16% fat, 2% fiber, and 30% moisture content. A great benefit of these treats is that they also contain DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid).
Zuke’s Puppy Treats are a low-value treat and come in three flavors: lamb, salmon, or pork. They’re grain-free, so they’re great for puppies with allergies. And there’s zero additives, by-products, gluten, or fillers.
We love this product for puppies because they include DHA and EPA, which are crucial nutrients for growing puppies.
In addition to high quality animal protein as the first ingredient, these treats also contain peas and chickpeas, potatoes, and vitamin supplements to keep your puppy healthy.
The nutritional content looks like 15% protein, 6% fat, 3.5% fiber, and 25% moisture, with 1.5 calories per piece.
Blue Buffalo Training Treats are yummy pieces of bite-sized meat for a high-value training treat. This product does not contain any wheat, corn, soy, chicken or poultry by-product meals, or artificial preservatives or colors.
Using these treats ensures a healthy snack to encourage your puppy to learn new tricks without stuffing them full of junk treats.
Blue Buffalo BLUE Bits has soft, moist, bite-sized pieces of real beef chunks shaped like an adorable heart. Each pack has a pound of yummy meat full of DHA, a crucial ingredient for puppies’ cognitive development.
This recipe’s first five ingredients include real beef, oatmeal, brown rice, cane sugar, and potatoes.
This product’s nutritional analysis includes 10% protein, 7% fat, 4% fiber, 27% moisture, 0.10% DHA, 0.8% Omega 3, and 1% Omega 6 fatty acids. And there is only 4kcal per piece.
If you’re worried about giving your puppy training treats loaded with ingredients, you may prefer this mini grain-free Limited Ingredient puppy treats by Natural Balance.
You can get these treats in three yummy flavors of chicken, turkey, or salmon. No matter which flavor you choose, you’ll feel comfortable knowing there’s never more than five ingredients.
Each tiny piece is a crunchy bone that can be eaten in one bite so your pet won’t lose his attention span to eat crumbs. And each one is less than five calories, so they’re completely healthy.
The ingredients list of this LID consists of real animal protein as the first ingredient, potatoes, peas, glycerin, cane molasses, sweet potatoes, and natural preservatives and minerals. There are no fillers, artificial preservatives, colors, or flavors.
The nutritional analysis has 3.5 kcal per treat with 10% protein, 4% fat, 4% fiber, and 22% moisture. Recommended feeding is five to six treats per 10 pounds.
If you’re looking for a medium value dog treat to train a puppy that prefers crunchy treats, you’re sure to love Nutro Natural Crunchy Dog Treats.
These small bite-size biscuits come in various yummy flavors, including:
These treats have a strong smell, so they’re sure to keep your puppy interested in their training. And they’re only five calories, so they’re healthy enough to use every day.
There are zero artificial preservatives, flavors, colors, chicken by-product meal, corn, wheat, or soy protein. If your pet has a lot of allergies, they might find these snacks suitable.
The ingredients look like whole brown rice, chicken meal (an excellent source of protein) oatmeal, peanut flour, and peanut butter in the peanut butter flavored snack.
Feeding recommendations are:
The nutritional analysis for these treats is 19% protein, 8% fat, 2% fiber, and 11% moisture, with five calories per treat.
Buckley Trainers are a bite-size, grain and gluten-free, low-calorie snack that’s perfect for training. These semi-most medium value treats have no artificial flavors or preservatives.
There is also zero soy, corn, or wheat in these low calorie (3.15 calorie per treat) treats. These treats hold their shape during handling so you can put them in your pocket during training or walks.
You can get these training snacks in multiple flavors such as chicken, bacon, salmon, and peanut butter.
The ingredients of the Salmon flavored snacks are peanut butter, potato starch, dried whey, potato flour, vegetable glycerin, and healthy fruits like dried blueberries and cranberries. There’s also minerals and preservatives to make these snacks healthy.
These treats’ nutritional contents include 12% protein, 6% fat, 2% fiber, and 28% moisture with a calorie content of 3.15 calories per treat.
Treat your learning puppy to yummy chicken-flavored snacks like these from Full Moon Organic human-grade (edible for humans) treats made from 100% natural ingredients.
Suppose organic is the way you like to go. In that case, you’ll love this ingredient list full of organic foods like USDA organic chicken, organic cane sugar, organic flaxseed, ground celery, and dried cultured skim milk.
These treats are free of glycerin, grain, corn, soy, and wheat and only include natural and organic ingredients.
The tiny bite-size pieces make this medium grade snack perfect for training or to carry along on walks as an easy reward. And the small size means you can feed your puppy a few pieces multiple times a day without causing your puppy to become obese.
The nutritional information for this yummy organic snack includes 22% protein, 25% fat, 2% fiber, 30% moisture, and 2.5 calories in each treat.
In addition to their tiny training treats, Full Moon Organic also offers savory sticks in chicken and duck flavors. There’s also duck flavored training treats, as well as chicken flavored.
We hope you have enjoyed our buyer’s guide for the best dog training treats for puppies. We’ve explained the different value treats and when they should be used for training. We’ve also given you some of the best and healthiest dog training treats for puppies.
Treats are great for teaching new tricks or rewarding your pet for good behavior. They can also help keep your puppy busy and happy. Now you know which ones are the best to use. We hope you enjoyed this best dog training treats for puppies buyer’s guide.
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