Tuesday Topics #31 - Phasing Out Treats
I was so pleased to hear that Guide Dogs for the Blind recently selected Natural Balance as their food of choice. When watching the TV show "Eight is Enough" in the 70s (for those of us who are old enough to remember it), who would have ever thought that we'd be feeding Dick Van Patten's dog food to our pets?
I think both Katrin and Ally had suggested Natural Balance food rolls as a highly motivating treat for recall. After much skepticism and distaste at the thought of cutting up this sausage-like meat, I have found that NOTHING makes Cabana come running like this stuff. I can call her away from just about anything (except cat poop, which is the bane of our walking existence) when she knows I have Natural Balance food roll pieces in my treat bag. 
Cutting up the food roll is not as disgusting as my vegetarian self had feared it would be. It has a slightly mealy texture, almost bread-like, and a fairly strong odor, which is probably a good thing since Cabana immediately knows when I've got a treat in my hand. A medium sized roll is enough for one month of treats, and each of the hunks in the photo above amounts to a day's worth of treats.
I chop the roll up completely, divide into equal portions, and freeze them in snack-size ziplock baggies. Each morning before heading out the door for our walk, I grab a baggy from the freezer. I really like this method because it helps me keep much better track of how many treats I'm giving Cabana. As I mentioned in my previous post, I try to be vigilant about how much Cabana eats. By having a measured amount of treats in the baggy, I know exactly how much to cut back on her regular meals.
Which brings me to my Tuesday Topic. I've heard that the difference between a good trainer and a great trainer is knowing when and how to phase out treat rewards. But I've seen the GDB trainer in my neighborhood still giving his 4-year old dog treats, so maybe some people never phase them out? I don't give her many treats in the house, but when we're walking, I mainly give them to her for recall and to help with dog distraction. But do I want to rely on having treats handy forever?
Have others been able to successfully phase out treats? Does treat-less good behavior come more naturally with age? Do you replace it with just verbal praise (seems sort of short shrift in comparison with Natural Balance morsels)? Or do you just save treats for the biggest and best behaviors?
