Treats are one of the most powerful tools in dog training. But most of us are using them wrong.

Here are the 3 biggest treat mistakes — and simple fixes for each:

Mistake #1: Treating at the wrong time. If you give a treat 10 seconds after the behavior, your dog has already moved on. The reward needs to come within 1-2 seconds for your dog to make the connection. Fix: Keep treats in your pocket during training. Mark the behavior with “yes!” and treat immediately.

Mistake #2: Using treats that are too big. Your dog doesn’t care about the size of the treat — they care about getting one. Large treats slow down training sessions and add unnecessary calories. Fix: Break treats into pea-sized pieces. You’ll get 5x more reps per session.

Mistake #3: Never fading treats out. Treats should be a teaching tool, not a permanent bribe. If your dog only listens when they see food in your hand, you’ve created a dependency. Fix: Once a behavior is solid, switch to random reinforcement — treat sometimes, praise other times. This actually makes the behavior stronger.

One more thing: check the ingredients. Many popular treats contain fillers, artificial colors, and preservatives that do more harm than good. Look for treats with 5 or fewer recognizable ingredients.

Training your dog takes patience, consistency, and the right information. Speaking of staying sharp and well-informed — here’s something we think you’ll enjoy:

Top engineers at Anthropic and OpenAI say AI now writes 100% of their code.

If you're not using AI, you're spending 40 hours doing what they do in 4.

These 100+ Claude Code hacks fix that and help you ship 10x faster.

Sign up for The Code and get:

Claim your free playbook