What Treats Should I Give My 8 Week Old Cockapoo?
September 4, 2009 by admin
Filed under Care & Training Q&As
I just got a little male cockapoo on the weekend. He’s doing great but I want to start giving him little treats to work with the training. Anyone have any good ideas for treats? He is very small… his father was a toy poodle.
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I have a 6 month old cockapoo and he often had (and still has) trouble eating big treats. Upon first getting him we got him some Mother Hubbard dog biscuits. We thought that they were a small enough size but he had such a hard time eating them. We then switched to a small chewy “training treat” found a petsmart. Those worked well and were much easier for them to eat and we used them for a while. Now the main training treat that we use for him is freeze dried liver (can be found in a bucket at petsmart. it comes in big cubes and i cut them up into smaller pieces for him, and a bucket lasts a small dog forever. we’ve had our bucket for over 2 months now and still have more than 1/2 left). Every dog I know goes absolutely crazy for it (our puppy trainer called it catnip for dogs) and Bailey has yet to get bored of it.
We of course give him a variety of other treats throughout the day when time isnt an issue and he can take his time eating it however during training, its best to give him something that he can eat easily and fast and that is yummy too. The freeze dried liver works great for that and he is always willing to work for it!
Congratulations on the new addition to your family. Great to hear you want to start with food rewards.
I usually suggest using bits of cooked chicken breast or soft meat. Nothing too rich or you may end up with a potty training nightmare!!
To avoid any weight gain which could cause long term problems I would also use a portion of his daily food intake. Put it in a little tupperware and use as you want. Remember to make it easy for him to get a treat but always ask him to work for it. Even if it is something small like coming when you called.
Consider using ‘clicker’ training. It is a great fun way of training with loads of variations. Karen Pryor has a great website and a few excellent books – ‘don’t shoot the dog’ was my favorite.
Good luck and remember not to overfeed.
There are plenty of “puppy” treats in pet stores. Science Diet and Authority are good and healthy brands. Try starting him off with milkbone treats; make sure you buy it in puppy size bites. You can also break the treats in half, even if it’s puppy size bites; just so you can do more training and yet, you don’t overfeed him with treats.
When my chihuahua puppies were still tiny, I gave them pieces of their regular puppy food kibble as training treats. They didn’t know the difference and I could give them a lot more treats without worry of over feeding them snack foods. They were getting “goodies” for all they knew!
Puppy treats which is biscuits for puppys.
Oh, I thought you were talking about a bird…
:/
string cheese, you could get low fat if needed, just break a pinch off, the dogs love it.