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I'm wandering what does everyone use as training treats for dogs with food sensitivities? For our collie x GSD, we have been using pieces of boiled chicken and pre-made treats that are all grain free and "natural". But I'm concerned that chicken is the cause of her itchy skin and digestive upset.
We've changed her main food to one that is fish and potato (instead of poultry and rice) and we haven't had an issue since. I thought it may have been the rice causing her issues, but after a couple of good long training sessions yesterday she had a dodgy poop this morning, and she's still super itchy (no fleas and can't see a rash or anything like that). We use the chicken as she loves it and we get a much better response from her than the pre-made treats (she likes them, but doesn't go nuts over them). We use the pre-made ones when we have run out of chicken or haven't been able to prepare any. But these "all natural" treats are super expensive and it's seems to be really hard to find ones that are in large amounts that don't have chicken in them! But even then, she prefers actual meat over them any day. She also LOVES cheese, but obviously we can't use that as her main training treat.
She spits out treats that she doesn't think is adequate for the trick/behaviour she performed and then will lose interest, so this is why things need to be high value. We tried carrot yesterday and she spat it straight out and gave me a look lol! She does the same if we use her dry kibble as a treat... She loves it when it's meal times, but I guess she thinks it's only for meal times?
So yeah, what would be good to use as a training treat that isn't chicken and is cheap? I've read that liver is good, but have also read that too much of it can cause pancreatitis... so i'm not too keen on using it as her primary training treat.
Additional info:
- Her current diet is Arden Grange - Sensitive.
- The brands of pre-made training treats we currently use are Pet Munchies and Feelwells. We use a few different flavours to try and keep things interesting for her (unsure if this actually works though!).
- We've had her for nearly 2 months now and she was originally being fed Chappies. I switched her onto Skinner's Field and Trial (Duck and Rice), but it wasn't agreeing with her (soft stools, a couple of bouts of diarrhoea, constantly scratching/biting herself). I initially put it down to stress of moving to a new family, but after a month it didn't improve. I also used some Forthglade (with brown rice... oops!) wet food mixed with her dried food to stuff her Kongs with, but I stopped using it after the diarrhoea. Then I tried her on Arden Grange - Adult (Chicken and Rice). There was some improvement, but her stools were still on the soft side and she was still itchy. Now she's on the sensitive version her stools have been fine... but she is still itchy. She's got a vet appointment tomorrow so I will ask about the itchiness just in case something else is causing that.
- Over the time that i've made the switch from Skinner's to Arden Grange, I have not been feeding her much chicken. We've been using the pre-made treats instead (but non-chicken versions). This was more accidental though as we were on holiday and couldn't easily cook up some chicken for her and we just happened to have non-chicken treats on us. But yesterday we went back to using the chicken treats and she was OK, but had a soft stool this morning.
- Other treats we've tried; cheese, turkey pieces, ham, cocktail sausages (tiny pieces), "Good Boy's" Mini Bites - Fish and Cheese, Pedigree Tasty Bites - Beef and Cheese, Harrington's Training Treats. I am unsure if any of these added to her tummy upset, as we've only tried them fleetingly. I found the sausages to be the best as they were cheap, easy to chop into tiny pieces, didn't go sweaty or slimy in my treat bag, and she really liked them. But they're pretty fattening. So they're great as a jackpot (like cheese), but not as a primary treat.
We've changed her main food to one that is fish and potato (instead of poultry and rice) and we haven't had an issue since. I thought it may have been the rice causing her issues, but after a couple of good long training sessions yesterday she had a dodgy poop this morning, and she's still super itchy (no fleas and can't see a rash or anything like that). We use the chicken as she loves it and we get a much better response from her than the pre-made treats (she likes them, but doesn't go nuts over them). We use the pre-made ones when we have run out of chicken or haven't been able to prepare any. But these "all natural" treats are super expensive and it's seems to be really hard to find ones that are in large amounts that don't have chicken in them! But even then, she prefers actual meat over them any day. She also LOVES cheese, but obviously we can't use that as her main training treat.
She spits out treats that she doesn't think is adequate for the trick/behaviour she performed and then will lose interest, so this is why things need to be high value. We tried carrot yesterday and she spat it straight out and gave me a look lol! She does the same if we use her dry kibble as a treat... She loves it when it's meal times, but I guess she thinks it's only for meal times?
So yeah, what would be good to use as a training treat that isn't chicken and is cheap? I've read that liver is good, but have also read that too much of it can cause pancreatitis... so i'm not too keen on using it as her primary training treat.
Additional info:
- Her current diet is Arden Grange - Sensitive.
- The brands of pre-made training treats we currently use are Pet Munchies and Feelwells. We use a few different flavours to try and keep things interesting for her (unsure if this actually works though!).
- We've had her for nearly 2 months now and she was originally being fed Chappies. I switched her onto Skinner's Field and Trial (Duck and Rice), but it wasn't agreeing with her (soft stools, a couple of bouts of diarrhoea, constantly scratching/biting herself). I initially put it down to stress of moving to a new family, but after a month it didn't improve. I also used some Forthglade (with brown rice... oops!) wet food mixed with her dried food to stuff her Kongs with, but I stopped using it after the diarrhoea. Then I tried her on Arden Grange - Adult (Chicken and Rice). There was some improvement, but her stools were still on the soft side and she was still itchy. Now she's on the sensitive version her stools have been fine... but she is still itchy. She's got a vet appointment tomorrow so I will ask about the itchiness just in case something else is causing that.
- Over the time that i've made the switch from Skinner's to Arden Grange, I have not been feeding her much chicken. We've been using the pre-made treats instead (but non-chicken versions). This was more accidental though as we were on holiday and couldn't easily cook up some chicken for her and we just happened to have non-chicken treats on us. But yesterday we went back to using the chicken treats and she was OK, but had a soft stool this morning.
- Other treats we've tried; cheese, turkey pieces, ham, cocktail sausages (tiny pieces), "Good Boy's" Mini Bites - Fish and Cheese, Pedigree Tasty Bites - Beef and Cheese, Harrington's Training Treats. I am unsure if any of these added to her tummy upset, as we've only tried them fleetingly. I found the sausages to be the best as they were cheap, easy to chop into tiny pieces, didn't go sweaty or slimy in my treat bag, and she really liked them. But they're pretty fattening. So they're great as a jackpot (like cheese), but not as a primary treat.
