# Taking treats....gently!



## Must dash (Nov 15, 2012)

Sadie, who is almost seven months now and I, go dog training each week. One of the criteria for our bronze award, is to take a treat from the dog trainer's hand, gently. Sadie loves her food and unfortunately the trainer who offers her her treat, seems not to have taken a liking to my V) I, obviously have no idea why!! ;D) She always chooses other dogs to train within the group. For that very reason, she feeds Sadie her treat, as she is deemed unfamiliar to my dog. My dilemma is, if offered a treat in the flat of anyone's hand, Sadie, whilst enthusiastic, takes it with just her lips, no teeth involved. The trainer, however, holds the treat in her fingers and of course Sadie tries to nibble it. Last weeks comment was "well that wasn't gentle at all"

Any tips on how to slow her down and be a bit more gentle taking a treat from fingers, rather than the flat of a hand, would be very much appreciated. 

Besides, we need to get into the silver award class, as the woman that runs the next level training, had a vizsla and is desperate for Sadie to move up into her group.


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## luv2laugh (Oct 6, 2011)

I love the names of these classes! 

Practice a lot at home and as soon as you feel any teeth let out a loud yelp, as if you got bitten. Oso would look at me with surprise and concern when I did this, then try again gentler.

Make her think, "Wow, those humans are just soooo fragile!" She'll adapt so she can get her treat without hurting you


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## Oquirrh the V (Jun 24, 2011)

Gotta love/hate those trainers. Our puppy socializing trainer once took Oquirrh's leash from me and said, "This is how you get him to heel."... as Oquirrh pulled the guy all around the yard, the trainer finally gave up and said, "Your dog is impossible." I just had to laugh. 

As for taking a treat nicely. I hold a soft treat, that will crumble in my hand and tell Oq "gentle" as he softly nibbles it out of my hand. When he is being soft I give him the rest of the treat. Is nibbling not being gentle? One thing I would avoid is dropping the treat into your dogs mouth. I've noticed that when I do this with Oq, he has more of a tendency to snap at the treat. Good luck and I hope you make it to silver!


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## Főnix (Feb 3, 2013)

Maybe it will occur to her that if she passes Sadie she won't be in her class anymore. ;D


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## Ozkar (Jul 4, 2011)

When feeding pup a treat, hold it in your fingers and curl them around it so there is just a tip of the treat visible. This makes it impossible to get out of your hand without biting you. You hold it till pup is being gentle and then release. I used the command "gently" when training it in. Now it's like butterfly feet.... barely noticeable.....


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## Rudy (Oct 12, 2012)

Bloke my bud Ozkar

fingers taste like Asian? ;D 8)

or da
chicken :-*

just asking lol


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## KB87 (Jan 30, 2012)

When you are starting the process of getting them to take the treat gently there will be times when they will nip you or get your hand in there a little. Remember not to yank the treat away when she does get your hand as this may teach her to snap at the treat more. Yanking it away could cause some anxiety (for lack of a better word) to grab it as soon as the treat is presented before you pull are able to pull it away again. Calmly present the treat with fingers tucked and you should be on your way to keeping all of your fingers


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## Rudy (Oct 12, 2012)

Watch any handler of Great horses feed them treats

Repeat"


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## Ozkar (Jul 4, 2011)

Rudy said:


> Bloke my bud Ozkar
> 
> fingers taste like Asian? ;D 8)
> 
> ...


No...all the thai on the menu was reserved for other patrons....thanks for asking though!  

I suppose if I really was a good V parent, I would find some fresh Kangaroo poo as a treat. That is one of their favourites after all. Not sure why, but they love it.......  Then I would be poo fingers! Been called that a few times in my life


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## datacan (May 15, 2011)

Sam has been doing that since he was small. 
Because I had a GSD they teach you to place the treat in the palm of your hand. 
This never worked for us because I taught them bite inhibition early on.

Bit of advice, for this to work the dog must be conditioned to accept fingers parked in the mouth for any length of time. Kind of hold fingers on command. Only then will it mind the fingers and nibble at the treat. He doesn't want your fingers, just the treat. 

Hunting dog, LOL soft bite is a must. 


Posted before on bite inhibition.


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## Must dash (Nov 15, 2012)

Thanks for all of the replys. Sadie does actually have good bite inhibition. We worked on it from day one. I think it's more of the speed and "enthusiasm" with which she takes the treat, rather than actually biting. She nibbles the treat very fast which is the problem. I need to slow her down. I always use the word "gently" and last week I was telling Sadie gently and the dog training lady was saying "nicely" : Nothing like confusing the poor dog. We shall practise today, as tonight is dog training class. I'll let you know how it goes


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## Must dash (Nov 15, 2012)

Sadie did quite well taking treats from me during the day. Not perfect, but a definite improvement. However at training, the dog trainer kept pulling the treat away when Sadie went to take it a little too quickly, so of course Sadie started to jump up to reach it : We got there in the end, but it was no where near as good as she had been during the day. Oh well! There's always next week. 

We need to work on her down stay as well. Lots of other dogs arriving for the next lesson, were enough of a distraction that she wouldn't do it at all! We have a week of solid practise ahead. We will get that bronze award


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## einspänner (Sep 8, 2012)

Must said:


> However at training, the dog trainer kept pulling the treat away when Sadie went to take it a little too quickly, so of course Sadie started to jump up to reach it :


Sounds like you should be teaching the trainer and not the other way around.  Still people won't handle Sadie the same way you do, so it's good for her to learn not to jump up even if someone is jerking the treat around. You could even work with her on that in combo with the down stay, upping the difficulty by putting the treat on the floor in front of her and progressing to waving it around. It's a game you invent as you go along.


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## CrazyCash (Jul 12, 2012)

Cash used to be terrible about snapping at treats, especially if other dogs were near him - he would jump up and try to snatch the treat out of your hand before any other dog could get it. I did something similar to what Ozkar describes. I would hold the treat in my fingers with just a little of it sticking out and then I say "easy" while I'm giving it to him, if he snapped at it or bit my fingers, I would keep my hand still and not let him have the treat and I would repeat "easy" as soon as he tried to take it gently then I would let go of the treat and praise him. He caught on pretty quickly and now he is extremely gentle. When he was in training class, the first time the instructor went to give him a treat she told me that she saw that big mouth coming and thought he was about to take off a finger and then he totally surprised her by taking it more gently than any dog in the class. 

Now I'm working on this same issue with Penny, if she's alone she takes treats very gently but if she's excited she'll still snap for it. Whenever my small nieces come over and want to give the dogs treats, I will let them feed Cash but not Penny yet - she's still a work in progress!


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## stryker (Dec 9, 2012)

Tell her take nice nice and mean it. If she tries to snap or pull it from you dont let go of it, and tell her again to take nice. Please remember one thing He who controls the treats controls the universe. Good Luck


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