Teach Your Dog to Take Treats Gently

Is your dog more like a shark when taking a treat from your hand?

It’s no fun and can really hurt when a dog grabs your fingers while snatching treats out of your hand. The good news is that we can teach dogs to take treats gently. In the meantime, set things up so they can’t keep making the mistake of taking the treat too hard. Find alternative ways to deliver treats in other situations, when you’re not working on this specific issue.

Image of brown and white dog taking a treat out of an open palm. This can allow you to deliver treats in position to reinforce other behaviors, while you separately work on taking treats gently. — Deliver the treat in an open palm. This can allow you to deliver treats in position to reinforce other behaviors, while you separately work on taking treats gently.

Treat delivery ideas while you separately teach your dog take treats gently

Deliver in a flat, open palm.
Use a food tube. Fill with canned paté style food, cream cheese or peanut butter. Or, get creative and make your own mixture. It needs to be a consistency that won’t drip out and won’t get stuck.
Toss or place the treat on the ground.

Picture of three different food squeeze tubes and a can of paté-style dog food. Great for force free, rewards based training!

Examples of Food Tubes

Coghlan’s Squeeze Tubes (Pictured bottom left)
Baby Food Reusable Squeezable Pouches (Pictured bottom middle)
GoToob (Cut out the little rubber piece in the cap opening, pictured bottom right)
Kong Easy Stuff’n (These come already filled, not pictured)

Phases of training “Please take treats gently”

Dedicated short training sessions. (5 minutes a couple times a day or so.) Pinch a treat between your thumb and the knuckle of your pointer finger, holding onto it tightly. Offer the treat to your dog and wait until your dog is gentle. The instant your dog is gentle, release the treat. You’re teaching your dog, “If you take the treat gently, you get the treat.” Repeat one after another so your dog is “warmed up.” Keep repeating these training sessions until your dog takes it gently nearly every time. You might start with a lower value treat at first, then work with more exciting treats as they progress.
Space out the repetitions. Again, keep repeating this until your dog is consistently taking the treat gently, now when they aren’t as warmed up. Then offer a treat multiple times randomly throughout the day.
Migrate into training practice with other skills your dog has already mastered. This might be something like sit or shake. Cue the sit, and when your dog sits, offer the treat. But only release the treat if your dog takes the treat gently. (For newer skills, use one of the treat delivery methods listed above so your dog is being reinforced consistently for the new skill.)

Is your dog scared or worried?

Sometimes dogs take treats with a hard mouth when they are scared. It’s important to work on the underlying issues in this situation, and to set things up to avoid putting our dogs into the scary situation in the meantime. Not sure where to get started? Check out my behavior consultations.