Everyone always asks me what is the best treat to train their cat or what is the one treat
they should have to train their cat?
Hi, we are Julie and Jones and we help you teach your cat fun and practical behaviours
to help enrich their life.
Hi guys Julie here today we are talking all about treats.
If you look into my treat pouch at any given time you are going to see a variety of different
treats because I am always working in different environments and on different behaviours.
There are low value treats and high value treats and I use those treats strategically.
If I'm working on a really easy behaviour I just need a low value treat if I'm working
in a low distracting environment then I can probably just be using something as simple
as dry food.
But then when I go outside and the environment has a lot more distractions, I'm going to
need the best treats for the job.
Every cat will have different preferences for treats and that's part of the challenge.
What your cat might like is not necessarily what my cat's favourite will be.
A cat's preferences depends largely on what you feed them for meals.
If you're feeding your cat a junk food diet, no treat is going to compare.
We need our cat's food to be healthy so that when we give them rewards it's better than
their main meals.
So what is a junk food diet in the cat world?
That would be dry food.
It doesn't matter if it's organic, it doesn't matter if it's grain free, dry food is not
suitable as your cat's main meal.
Manufacturers of dry food know how to coat those little dry pieces of food with something
amazing to turn your cat into a kibble addict.
When people come to me and tell me that their cat isn't food motivated, it's usually because
of two reasons: the first one is that they feed their cat a dry food diet.
The second reason is because they leave their cat's dry food out all day.
If you want to build your cat's food motivation you need them on a moisture rich diet and
you need to put their food away.
That means feeding them several, small scheduled meals per day.
Then, everything else is used for training or food puzzles.
We don't put any dry food in a bowl.
When I select treats to train my cat or to train Jones, I look at several variables:
treats should be healthy, I don't want to be giving Jones a ton of junk food.
Treats should be tiny, I look for treats that I can cut into tiny pieces and it won't take
a long time to prepare.
You know if you've seen me train I like tossing treats, so it's really important that I use
something dry.
So what treat meats all those criteria?
Freeze dried treats.
Freeze dried treats come in a variety of proteins you can find them at most pet stores they
can be broken into tiny pieces because they usually only consist of a single ingredient
you know you're not giving your cat junk food.
If I had to pick one treat to use for Jones, freeze dried treats would be my first choice.
The other thing about freeze dried treats is you can crumble them over your cat's food
so if you're trying to introduce your cat to freeze dried treats it can be really easy
to do that.
For certain behaviours ones like nail trims, teeth brushing, going to the vet, going in
the car, those are the hardest behaviours and in those cases I usually use a churu puree.
Those are the lickable treats, I reserve them for special occasions.
I hope that gives you an idea of the variety of treats that I use in my training and why
I select them.
I encourage you to look at your cat's meals, make sure you are feeding them a healthy,
moisture rich diet and keeping it to small, scheduled meals.
That is the way to build your cat's food motivation so you can use a variety of treats.