Using the right kind of reward is very important in dog training.

The reward needs to be motivating enough for your dog to be able to focus on the training and ignore any distractions. A reward isn’t always food. It can be attention from people, playtime with other dogs, chasing things…basically anything your dog likes. That’s why we sometimes struggle getting our dog’s attention outside because there are other things that are more rewarding for them. But this doesn’t mean we should just give up and let the dog do what they like the most.

Most dogs can be rewarded with treats, you simply need to find the right kind of treat/s for your dog. A treat that works at home with minimum distractions might not be motivating enough outside with other more interesting things around. So you might have to use a mix of different treats for the training sessions and evaluate what kind of treats have low value to your dog and what kind of treats have high value.

High value treats should always be used for difficult training sessions.

Examples of low value treats: 

Kible, dry treats (dried liver/meat), vegetables…

Examples of high value treats:

Cooked meat (chicken, pork, beef, lamb etc), cheese, ham, peanut butter…