What you need to train your dog

Everything you need for dog training, the best treats for training your dog, treat pouches and more!

Ready to start training? I’m going to go over what you need to train your dog.

Your dog + Leash

Of course, you want your dog with you during training! When starting out training I often keep my dog on a leash… even in the house, this helps keep the training session focused and in one area. 

Treats

Rewards are a big part of training, especially when learning new behaviors. The same way we want a paycheck for our hard work our dogs deserve reward and praise too. Studies show the more we reward good behaviors the more likely they are to occur. Do I take treats with me everywhere all the time? No, and with training, you’ll get to that point too.

For treats, I stick with treats that don’t have added sugar, grains, or additives and are mostly meat. I like treats that are a bit stinky (helps to get and keep their attention) and either small in size or that I can break up easily. Smaller pieces lead to longer training sessions no matter the size dog.

I generally mix up the type of treats I use in a session, dogs love the variety and not knowing what is coming next.

You can find a complete list of my favorite go-to treat’s here.

My favorite dog treat bags

This seems silly, but after putting treats in my pockets, fanny packs, traveling the world with The Pack using treats everywhere, and more I can say a good treat bag is worth it’s weight in gold! 

My go-to is by blue-9 pet products and has a pocket big enough to fit my phone (to capture those cute moments), a nice size compartment for treats, a zipper pocket for a key, business cards, etc, and is slim fitting to not get in my way. You’ll find it linked above with the treats too.

See more options and my full break down here.

Training Platform

While a training platform isn’t required, it can set you up for a bit more success. When starting a new dog out for training I almost always have them start on a training platform, I use the Klimb. The idea is that when an animal is on a higher level, they think a bit more before moving around – which gives you a head start on their attention during training. We have this right at our front door! And every dog that comes for training in our house is trained on a KLIMB, I can’t recommend this product enough. I still use it on my own dogs in our training sessions together.

If you don’t have a platform an ottoman or on your sofa works great too. A platform just gives a bit more versatility such as making a slow feeder, a wobbly surface, a table to crawl under, and much more.

You’ll see me discuss this a bunch in my training videos, so you don’t need to rush on it now. 

Now, it’s time to start training! Starting with… how long and where to train.

Looking for….

1. Puppy training
2. Trick training
3. Basic training