First, it helps to remember that food isn’t the only reward available. Anything your dog values can be used as a reward, whether it’s food, play, attention, or access to a desired place or object. These are all important and useful training tools. Our aim is to deliver the appropriate reward to your pup whenever he does something right. But here’s why we use Food treats so often while training in class: for many dogs, the fastest way to their brains is through their stomachs. So food treats are a quick and and highly effective way to reward behaviors as they are being taught. Tiny food treats can be delivered repeatedly while we train in class. Plus, they are often the single best tool we have to help your dog train successfully around the normal distraction levels in class. Ideally, food should not be the only reward used to train your dog. Once your dog has learned to perform a behavior really well in a variety of conditions, food can often be swapped out for other rewards to help keep a behavior strongly reinforced. It takes loads of time and considerable skill to get to this point, and many owners try to take away the rewards too soon.