# not interested in training treats or kong



## vizslalouis (Jan 19, 2015)

Hello, 
Louis is 9 weeks and has been home with us since 8 weeks. He is not really interested in training treats. we might get 1 or 2 come and sits and then he dosn't care that you have food. we have tried dried liver, kibble, carrot, banana, cheese. Nothing will keep him interested in following the food smell. He also dosnt care if there is food in the puppy kong we have for him. 
He is very interested when there is food in his bowl, but this is really the only time. 
We have been reading Ian Dunbars 'before and after you get your puppy' books and watching his videos, however he uses food as lures and Louis is just not interested and also was not interested in eating his meals from a kong or hollow chew toy.
Has anyone else experienced this?
Any tips on how to teach basic commands when a puppy isn't interested in food treats?
thankyou in advance!


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## einspänner (Sep 8, 2012)

A lot of puppies don't take to the kong right away, so I'd just give that time.

Scout would just sit and give me strange looks when I tried using food lures. You could try using a toy as a lure if he's more interested in that or you could look into clicker training, which is what worked best for us. Teaching sit is pretty easy without lures, since you can just push their butt to the ground, but for other behaviors like lying down, I would wait until she did it on her own, click, and then give her a treat. The idea behind this is they try to figure out what they did to deserve the treat and start offering behaviors. 

There are lots of videos about clicker training on youtube. Look into those to get the gist of the method. 

If he's completely disinterested in food, I'd do training at meal times or just use exuberant praise as the reward.


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## Bob Engelhardt (Feb 14, 2012)

I'd suggest two things: let him get hungry before training & the treats will have more value. Try more treats to find the ones that he does like - there must be some. Fish, bacon, cream cheese, chicken are some that ours liked and you didn't mention.

Bob


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## marathonman (Jan 15, 2013)

Also, he's pretty young. Give him some time to grow up a little. Always stay positive and try short training sessions. If all he is interested in is his food bowl, make your training session with putting the food down. Work on a sit before his food bowl goes down. (and then work on making him wait and release before digging in.


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## hotmischief (Mar 11, 2012)

He is very young so as the others have said I wouldn't worry.

The other thing is that most gundog trainers do not use treats as a reward - just their voice. So just use lots of verbal praise. Vizslas are a breed that are very keen to please so let him know with your voice that he is Doing what you ask.

Keep training sessions short at this age 5 minutes is fine.


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

The first week, or two with a new pup should be more about bonding, and the pup getting comfortable in its new home. Potty training takes up a lot of time, and crate training stresses them. So snuggles and fun time are what I do the rest of the day.
With highly treat motived pups, you can play fun games, but its not really training. Its the pup trying trial, and error, to figure out what gets them the treat. But even that can put a little stress on them, till they figure it out. 
My best advise would be take a step back on training, and try it again next week.


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## dextersmom (Oct 29, 2013)

Our weim pup wasn't interested in treats at first either, it took about two weeks for her to discover she loves them (now she's a cookie monster ). It did make potty training a bit difficult early on (also a Dunbar fan - but she wanted nothing to do with the dried liver initially). Praise really motivated her though, so we went with that. Dexter also wouldn't touch Kongs for the longest while (he still doesn't really like them frozen). I'd give him some more time and just keep giving him treats... I bet in another week or two he'll figure out how yummy they are


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## trevor1000 (Sep 20, 2013)

If he is only interested when his food is in his bowl then train him that way.
Take his empty bowl, command him and put the treat in his bowl.


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