Beyond The Biscuit: How to Train Dogs with Food the Right Way Force-Free Positive Reinforcement

🎧 Podcast Episode Description (for Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and RSS)

In this episode, we debunk the myths and misinformation surrounding the use of food in dog training — including the age-old claim that “dogs trained with treats only work when food is visible.”

Will Bangura, M.S., CAB-ICB, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FFCP, internationally certified canine behaviorist and host of Dog Training Today, guides you through the science and structure of reward-based training, revealing how to use food correctly—not as a bribe, but as a powerful reinforcer.

We explore:

• Why food is the most effective and ethical training tool
• How to avoid dependency and fade treats strategically
• The science behind marker timing, operant and classical conditioning
• Mistakes pet parents make with treat delivery
• How to build lasting behaviors that don’t rely on food presence

                                           FREE

🎁 Want to dive deeper? Download Will’s FREE 35-page guide:
👉 https://phoenixdogtraining.com/how-to-train-dogs-with-food-correctly/
This in-depth resource walks you step-by-step through how to train with food using evidence-based, humane techniques that actually work. Perfect for pet parents and training professionals alike.

📌 Whether you're struggling with food-focused dogs or skeptical about reinforcement-based training, this episode lays the foundation for real behavior change without force, fear, or gimmicks. If you need dog aggression training in phoenix az. contact me 

Chapters

• 0:00 Effective Food Training Introduction
• 3:29 The Treat Pouch Necessity
• 9:36 Marker Training Explained
• 17:08 Sequence: Behavior First, Reward After
• 21:17 Variable Reinforcement Strategies
• 25:23 High-Value Food Selection
• 29:09 Training in Distracting Environments

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

do you use food in training? Are you rewarding your dog with food? Quite frankly, 99% of even professional dog trainers use food the wrong way, and you could be doing it much more efficiently. And what does that mean? It means that you're going to get your dog trained a lot faster. All that and more, in 60 seconds.

Speaker 2: 0:28

Raised by wolves with canine DNA in his blood. Having trained more than 24,000 pets, helping you and your fur babies thrive, live in studio with Will Bangura answering your pet behavior and training questions. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host and favorite pet behavior expert, will Bangura.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Would you like to go on? Are y'all ready for this? Good day dog lovers. Hey, I'm Will Bangura. Thanks for joining me for another episode of Dog Training Today. I'm your certified canine behaviorist and overall dog behavior expert. Do me a favor. You know it always amazes me because we've got so many people that listen to the podcast. But you know, half of the folks that listen are not subscribed and you guys are missing a lot. Do yourself a favor. Do me a favor. Hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Also, if you love what we do, hit that like button. Give us a five-star review. That's how our rankings go up. More people can hear about dog training today.

Speaker 1: 1:50

I wanted to take a quick second, like I said in the opener, about the use of food in dog training. You know I watch professional dog trainers use food and obviously I watch pet parents use food and most are using food the wrong way. So I want to talk about the right way Now. First of all, if you're using food to train your dog, you must have a treat pouch. It is mandatory. You must have a treat pouch. It is mandatory. The worst thing that you can do is be training your dog and having food in your hand. Dogs are going to respond more to visual cues than auditory cues. If you're giving the command like this, with food in your hand, they think that they have to see this, they think that this is a visual cure command and they think that food's got to be there. That's part of the command too. This is a bribe.

Speaker 1: 2:58

Training with food is not about bribing. It's about rewarding the dog. Think about food as a paycheck and the dog is doing work and the dog's going to get its paycheck after it does the work and that treat pouch. That's a wallet or a purse where the currency is the money, the pay for the work for the dog, and in this case it's extremely high value food rewards. They should be tiny, about the size of a pea, but highly I mean highly palatable. Don't use garbage. Find out what your dog loves. Is it little cut up pieces of hot dog? Little cut up pieces of cheese? Little cut up pieces of chicken or beef? That's what you want to use about the size of a pea.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Now, if you're using food, you have got really any reinforcer. You've got between about a half a second and two seconds maximum to get that food in the dog's mouth for them to connect the dots. Hey, I'm getting that food because I sat. You know, if you ask for a sit and the food doesn't get in the dog's mouth for four seconds later, it's very likely the dog is not connecting the dots. It has no clue. Hey, the reason I got this food is because I sat. Now the dog will like the food.

Speaker 1: 4:31

Maybe that 20 minute training session that you're in with the dog is more pleasant because there's food there. It's kind of like, you know, if you're invited to a party. Have you ever been invited to a party and there was like no food? But then you're invited to another party and they got this incredible spread. Hey, you're going to enjoy the party that's got all the food. So you're going to enjoy the training where there's food involved.

Speaker 1: 5:01

But for the food to be a reinforcer, it's a timing issue. Now, if we don't want the food to be a bribe and we've got to have it in a treat pouch and that's critical. By the time the dog does the behavior, then we reach in that treat pouch, pull the treat out, give it to the dog. We've lost that window. That might be longer than two seconds. Remember the rule You've got about a half a second to two seconds to get the food in the dog's mouth, or they're not going to connect the dots. You're working hard but you're not working smart. You're working hard but you're not working smart. Now the next thing if you want to work with food correctly, you have to be using a marker system. What does that mean? That means that you are classically conditioning a signal to the food reward.

Speaker 1: 6:03

Some of you have heard about a clicker. Some of you have understood marker training as maybe using the word yes. Now, the clicker is a sound. Yes is a sound. Neither one of those have any value to a dog until you condition either the click or the word yes Doesn't have to be the word yes. It could be nice, but you've got to take something that's a neutral stimulus. It has no value and you need to condition and pair value to that neutral stimulus. And let me explain how this works. The clicker has no value.

Speaker 1: 6:50

But let's say I've got 30 small pieces of high value food rewards and on day one I go click. Immediately I give a treat. I go click. I immediately give another treat again I go click. I give a treat. I go click. I immediately give another treat Again, I go click, I give another treat and I keep repeating this process Click treat, click treat. That's the clicker, is the marker. I'm conditioning that click means treat and my timing's got to be good here. Click treat, click. Give the treat, get that treat in the dog's mouth immediately after the click. You're going to do that for about 30 times in a row. You're going to do that for about three days in a row.

Speaker 1: 7:39

On day four, when your dog's just hanging out near you, you're going to test it. You're going to click your clicker. Hey, does your dog come running over to you, excited, looking for food? Because if it does, you know that the dog understands click means treat. Now that clicker has value. It used to be a neutral stimulus. Now it's a conditioned stimulus. It's been conditioned that it means food's coming. It is that sound. That click is a bridge between the click and the food. It's a signal that we condition so that when a dog does a behavior, what we can do, always very quickly, is click that clicker. The instant the dog's butt hits the ground on, sit, click. That signals the dog. There's a light bulb that goes off in the dog's brain that says hey, I know that sound. That means I'm getting a food reward. So even if it takes you five seconds to reach in that treat pouch and get the food to the dog, you've not lost any timing as long as your marker that you're using has good timing.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Now let's say that you condition the food to the word yes or nice. I like using nice. Same thing 30 pieces of high-value food rewards. Very small, the size of a pea, I've got to go. Nice, give the treat. Nice, give another treat. Nice, give another one, you get the another treat. Nice, give another one, you get the idea. 30 times in a row, three days in a row, day four, I'm going to test it Arbitrarily. I throw out the word nice. Does my dog come running to me looking for food? If it does, mission accomplished. Now I've created a marker in training and now it has value. Now I can use it. But here's an important step Never click that clicker, except for marking a desired behavior.

Speaker 1: 10:01

But the behavior has to happen first. Then you click the clicker, then you reach in your treat pouch, then you give the food reward. Do not reach in that treat pouch until after the behavior has happened. Do not have food in your hand until after the behavior has happened. Hand until after the behavior has happened. Don't be reaching for that treat pouch until after the behavior has happened.

Speaker 1: 10:33

These are the biggest mistakes that trainers and pet parents are making. They got food in their hand. When they're asking for the behavior, they have their hand in the treat pouch. When they're asking for the behavior, they're having their hand in the treat pouch. When they're asking for the behavior, they're having their hand in the treat pouch, asking for the behavior and pulling the food out. They're reaching for the treat pouch, asking for the behavior. No, that's all wrong. Forget about the food, forget about the treat pouch. Get your dog doing the behavior you want. Maybe you're working on the behavior of down, lying down, and so you ask for down and your dog does it. You get that behavior. The only thing you need to worry about is as soon as your dog engages in that behavior. If it's down, as soon as the belly hits the ground, you need to click or say nice, whatever that conditioned marker is. And when you do that, here's the sequence Dog lays down, click, light bulb goes on in the dog's brain. I'm getting a food reward. You reach in your treat pouch, you pull out the food and you give it to the dog. There is the clearest of communication there and when communication is clear, the dog is going to learn 12 times faster.

Speaker 1: 12:06

Dogs are frustrated a lot because trainers don't use markers. Dogs are frustrated a lot because we're bribing them with food. Now there are special occasions where food is out, that's if you've got to use a food as a lure to guide a dog. You know, if I want the dog to sit, I might put food to its nose. If it never learned, sit food to its nose, go up. I would go back arch over and the dog goes back and boom, the dog sits. Now I give the treat. Well, I'm going to use a food lure call it a bribe, if you will just a couple times to create the behavior so that the dog understands that Then I'm going to get rid of that food. I'm going to use my hand it still smells like food. The dog might think there's food in there. But I guide the dog back into the sit and I click or I use my verbal marker that I conditioned Nice. And then I reach in my treat pouch and I get the food and I reward. Now, as I'm doing that the dog is seeing. Oh so there wasn't food in the hand before all this happened, so you start fading.

Speaker 1: 13:30

If you're using a bribe, a lure, because you're teaching a new behavior, look as soon as the dog gets it. You need to be fading that food out because food needs to come from the treat pouch. Get your hands off the treat pouch, forget about the treat pouch, forget about the food. Your job is to get the dog doing the behavior and then immediately marking that behavior with either your clicker or your verbal marker, whether it's yes, whether it's nice. That's your focus, and when you do that, it's going to take a little while. But when you do it that way, the dog's going to engage with you and want to work for you rather than just always looking for food. Look, when you first put a treat pouch on, they're going to be harassing you. They know food's there. I get it All right.

Speaker 1: 14:25

One of the worst things we can do and this again is how you're using food wrong. One of the worst things that we could do is put on a treat pouch, go train, end our training session and take off the treat pouch. We're going to get a dog that's only going to work when it sees the treat pouch what you need to do. I know it's inconvenient, but if you want to get off of that food and treat pouch quicker, you do this. You put on that treat pouch first thing in the morning. You leave it on at all times. You take it off if you're leaving the house without the dog. You take it off when you go to bed. Other than that, you leave it on so that it's just part of your normal wear. After the dog is trained you're not going to need to do that. But again, this is going to help get your dog trained faster. This is going to help with better communication. Have that on you First of all.

Speaker 1: 15:30

You never know when your dog's going to just offer an incredible behavior that you want you're trying to train in and you can capture that. And if you've got your equipment, if you've got your clicker with you, or if you've got your treat pouch with you and you've been working on down and you know the dog doesn't really have it that great yet, but your dog at 9.30 at night, walks into the living room, comes to you to be pet a few times and then lays down on its own at your feet A I want to label that behavior. I'm noticing the dog's laying down. I'm going to go down, click and reward. Now, I did not ask for down. The dog offered that behavior on its own. I labeled it as it was happening and then I clicked and rewarded it. That's called capturing. That's another way that you can begin to reinforce and teach behaviors.

Speaker 1: 16:34

But getting back to food and the right way to use food, you got to have the treat pouch on at all times and there's a sequence Ask for the behavior mark with your marker, then reach in the treat pouch, then feed. Okay, if your dog first of all in the beginning with food, you want to have a consistent reinforcement schedule, what does that mean? That means that for every behavior you ask for, every correct response, your dog gets a food reward. Okay, that's a continuous reinforcement schedule. I do that until the dog gets pretty good at the behavior. So if I'm teaching down and the dog will do down, say eight, nine out of 10 times the dog has, it understands what the behavior is, okay, now, once we get to that point, I'm going to change how I use food. I then am going to use food rewards intermittently. Use food rewards intermittently, but let me go back to that continuous reinforcement schedule when we're first teaching behaviors.

Speaker 1: 18:12

The other thing that I do with food. Sometimes the dog gets one food reward, sometimes they get four, sometimes they get two, sometimes they get three. Now they're little, the size of a pea, but imagine this is my treat pouch right here, okay, and the dog does a behavior. I click, I reach in my treat pouch. The dog gets one reward. I ask for behavior again the dog does it. I click, I reach in my treat pouch. Get in one reward. Give one. Reach in my pouch. Give the second one. Reach in my pouch. Give the third one. I click, I reach in my treat pouch. I pull in one, give it to the dog. Pull in two, give it to the dog. Ask for the behavior again the dog gives it. I click, the dog gets one. Ask for the behavior again the dog does it. I click, the dog gets four. One, two, three, four.

Speaker 1: 19:24

So when the dog responds to the behavior, when I'm doing continuous reinforcement, when I'm teaching new behaviors, they'll get, when they get their food reward, anywhere between four tiny little pea-sized pieces of food reward up to just one tiny little pea-sized pieces of food reward, up to just one, and it varies. Sometimes it's one, the next one might be one, the next one might be one, then the next one might be three, then it might be one, one, four, two, two, four, four, one, three, two, mix, mixing it up. Why do I do that? Because there's psychology behind that, and the psychology is they're going to work harder, they want four, and when sometimes they don't get four, they're going to work a little harder to figure out how do I get four.

Speaker 1: 20:17

So, in addition to that, the biggest mistake that we make with food is we ask for a behavior. They do it. Yeah, we don't have a marker. That's a big mistake. Number one, but number two we ask for the behavior. They do it. We give them one food reward and as soon as they're done, they check out. The dog checks out. You lose the dog's focus right away and you may want the dog to do something else. So a really great skill is to vary the amount of treats after a response so that the dog will stay engaged with you and not check out, thinking, oh, I'm only going to get one because that was a pattern. I got one and we were done. Next time you ask me, I got one, we were done. So every time after I got my food the dog took off. We don't want that Now. Once your dog knows a behavior, eight, nine out of 10 times is very reliable.

Speaker 1: 21:28

We're going to also change how we use food. We're still going to do the reward schedule one, two, three or four pieces when we reward. However, remember when we were first teaching behaviors, we gave a reward every single response. Okay, and that means that every single response there was a click and they got their reward. Remember, they might have gotten one, they might have gotten three, might have gotten three, might have gotten four, because we're varying it.

Speaker 1: 22:04

Well, once they consistently understand the behavior, now when they do the behavior, they may not get a click and a reward. We may ask them to do the behavior two times in a row and then they get a click and a food reward. That might be varied. The next time when we ask for sit, we might not click, they might not get a reward, and we ask them to sit three more times and after the third sit, we click and give a reward. We might just give one or we might give three, we might give four. The next time I might ask for sit and the dog only has to sit once and I reward the dog Next time. Maybe the dog's got to sit three times before a click and a reward, or two times before a click and a reward, or four times. I'm going to mix it up. How many times the dog has to repeat a behavior before it gets a click and a reward?

Speaker 1: 23:16

This is intermittent variable reinforcement. This is the strongest reinforcement schedule. This is what really gets animals to work hard and work fast and to really really be motivated. As your dog starts getting to that point. Now we want to start taking the dog in other environments. Start with moderate or light distractions. Listen wherever you go, wherever you train with distractions. If you can't keep your dog's focus, if your dog won't respond to cues and commands, if your dog won't take food, doesn't mean that this doesn't work. It means you're too close to distractions that are too intense right now. You got to start with the baby steps. You've got to go to milder distractions and be further away from them. Well, your dog knows they're there, but you can keep your dog's focus. Your dog is relaxed, it's loose, it'll take food, respond to cues and commands and you train there with distractions and you're using that variable reinforcement schedule.

Speaker 1: 24:29

You're not giving a click and a food reward for every response. You're making the dog do multiple responses and you're mixing it up. Maybe he's got to do it twice before it gets a click and reward. Maybe next time they only have to do it one time before a click and reward. Maybe they have to lay down four times in a row before they get a click and reward. And remember, when we're rewarding with food, sometimes they might get four pieces One, two, three, four. Sometimes they might get just two, one, two, four. Sometimes they might get just two, one, two. Remember we're picking them one at a time out of the treat pouch. If you're rewarding multiple food rewards, don't reach in the treat pouch and grab four and give it to the dog. Do it one, reach in for the second two, reach in for the third, three. You get the idea. You get the idea.

Speaker 1: 25:24

Now it's important when you're training and you're training with food that you find what is your dog's favorite food, and usually it's not going to be some kind of store-bought treat, all right, it's usually going to be cooked chicken, cooked beef, something yummy cheese, little cut-up pieces of hot dog. Experiment with these foods, put out several little piles and let your dog run to them. See which one your dog goes to first, then second, then third, and then do it again. And now that they know what these things taste like, now watch which one did they go to first, which one did they go to second, which one did they go to third? These things are important because your highest value food reward let's say it's hot dogs let's say that's the one the dog went to first the most.

Speaker 1: 26:23

I'm going to use that for really good responses, really good. Let's say the dog was struggling and then all of a sudden it did a behavior Perfect, giving you the hot dog. But let's say that chicken they like the second best and cheese they like the third dog. But let's say that chicken they like the second best and cheese they like the third best. Okay, well, let's say they respond to a cue and command, but it was not so great. I still going to click and reward, but I'm going to give the third tier reward, that cheese. But then the next time the dog does it the dog does it a little bit better. I'm going to click and I'm going to give a piece of chicken, that second tier food reward. Better performance, better pay. Now, the next time the dog does it perfect, I'm going to click and give that piece of hot dog. Yes, the highest value, performance-based pay.

Speaker 1: 27:24

These are things that can help speed up training. These are things that can really help cognify and clarify in the dog's mind what it is we're doing. We need them to connect these cognitive dots, to make the connections. I want you to work hard, but I want your hard work to pay off. And what does that mean? That means that I want you to work smart, not just hard. I want you to work smart, and these tips, these are the things that are going to give you the best results.

Speaker 1: 28:10

Now it's critical that you train your dog everywhere and little by little, you go into more and more distracting environments. But don't ever say my dog can't do it, you're just in too distracting environment too soon. Back up, dial it down, get in an environment that's not as distracting, where you can have success. Spend more time conditioning there. You're just working too fast. Trust me, this can all be accomplished. You don't need to use punishment. I used to use punishment before. I knew better, but you know you don't know what you don't know, and that's why education is so important. That's why continuing your education is so very, very important, because you will learn these things and it's going to be important.

Speaker 1: 29:03

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I don't know if you can hear that there's a little bit of background music and that means I'm out of time. I hope you got something out of this 30-minute podcast. Do me a favor If you like what we do, please, please, pause. Give us a five-star review, share this with your friends and family, share this with your social media timeline. I'm going to try to do a lot more podcasts short podcasts because I know everybody's busy. Here comes our volume, right, everybody's busy, but we still got to get our dogs trained, right. Have a great day everybody. I'm Will Bangura. Thanks for joining me for another episode of Dog Training Today.

Speaker 2: 29:50

I'm outta here dog training, dog training, bye.