You don’t need food to train a dog: A ‘radical’ concept that has trained so many ‘untrainable’ dogs

Do you think you need food in order to train a dog? Because I did. Training without food is definitely not new, but that concept appears to be radical given the overwhelming majority of dog training advice that espouses ‘positive-only’ protocols. The positive-only advice is so pervasive that I genuinely had no idea there was any other way. So when I first heard a well-respected trainer say that dogs don’t need food to learn commands and proceed to demo it successfully with dog after dog, my mind was blown.

Don’t get me wrong - the use of food can be a fantastic way to train a behavior. It can be used both to lure the dog into a new position and to reward them for doing what you’re asking. As a trainer, I almost exclusively use food when training young puppies. I also use it for motivating super unmotivated dogs who happen to take it. But food, just like any other training tool, needs to be used methodically and with an understanding of its limitations.

Treats can impede learning and make it difficult for dogs to calm down

Treats cause many dogs to become excited. Excitement is the energy you want to encourage when you’re working on things like trick training and agility. However, basic obedience commands for real-life situations are far more than tricks - they’re essential instructions to our dogs about how they must behave in our homes and out in the world. We need our dogs to carry out these instructions calmly, and remaining calm is difficult for many dogs when food comes around.

Using food to train excitable dogs then presents two problems. First, it can be too big of a distraction in the initial phase of training. Take a situation I’ve seen many times: a dog who’s doing a great job holding commands, only to “regress” and continually break commands the moment we bring food into the picture. We then have to correct the dog for breaking the command, and that isn’t super fair in the initial stage of training. In later stages, once the dogs know what’s expected of them, we’ll use food as an intentional distraction and even as an occasional reward. But in the beginning, we generally avoid treats to keep these dogs’ minds clear and in a better space for learning.

The second problem with using food to train excitable dogs is that the dogs generally won’t calm down and relax into a command if they’re anticipating that food is on the way. They’ll often remain alert and anxious, not wanting to miss a treat delivery. This then totally negates the calm mindset we’re trying to nurture in them during commands like down, place, and kennel.

Plenty of dogs won’t even take food

The majority of dogs we work with will not take food at the beginning of their training programs. The reasons for this vary - they’re nervous because they’re being led around by a stranger, or they’re in a new environment, or they really just don’t want to work. The positive-only camp wants these dogs and their owners to keep struggling. If your dog won’t work for treats, they say, you’re out of luck. Work on your relationship with the dog first, and then try again. That sounds all good and well - but what if you’ve owned the dog for years and have an otherwise great relationship with it? What if you’re a trainer whose job it is to train the dog right now? Or what if you just want to have a calm, well-trained dog, and treats haven’t gotten you where you want to go?

There is hope for your ‘untrainable’ dog

If you’ve tried food training and have had limited or no success, or your dog is performing commands but his mind is far from calm and relaxed, there is hope. It is perfectly reasonable, and in many cases preferable, to train your dog using methods other than with treats. My preferred way to do this is through a combination of leash pressure and e-collar training, the sequence of which depends on the dog’s personality. No, e-collars don’t harm dogs - I’ll make a future post about this. But if you think you’ve tried “everything,” and your “everything” involved only treats and rewards - there is a whole world of possibility out there that could make all the difference.