How to Teach a Dog to Take a Treat Gently

Most puppies don’t have any manners. They are excitable, jumpy, bark too much, destroy things…the list goes on. With Ezra, I struggled with training him new skills sometimes because he was so excited to get the treat, he would bite my fingers. It was never on purpose, it was just bad manners. But it made training far less fun for me.

This isn’t an often discussed skill to train your dog, but it’s really important to teach for your safety and other people’s safety. Luckily, it’s pretty basic and easy to learn. This post will cover each step in detail so your dog can take food from your hand politely.

Why do I need to teach my dog to take food gently?

Most people don’t bother teaching this skill because it’s usually only puppies who need to practice it. A lot of the time, it is chalked up to a maturity issue that the puppy will grow out of instead of a behavior they need to learn. However, you want to enforce the good behavior early on because:

• You want to teach your dog good manners. Just like toddlers, they may learn good manners over time, but that doesn’t stop parents from reinforcing them at an early age to make it a guarantee.
• You want to ensure the safety of the people around you. Not all people understand dog behaviors to know that an excited puppy may accidentally bite you. You want to avoid a negative behavior for all people and animals. Plus, sometimes it’s tough to watch your pup 24/7. The last thing you want is your dog to accidentally bite a child when you aren’t supervising. You want to trust your dog to have good manners even when you aren’t there to reinforce it.
• This will make overall training far easier for you. This was the main reason I made sure to teach Ezra to take a treat gently, especially in leash training. Most trainers will tell you to give your dog a treat every few steps as you are walking in order to keep your dog by your side. But it’s really hard to give your dog a treat as your walking and keeping your fingers in tact.

Basic Training Steps to Teach your Dog to Take a Treat Gently

At a high level, the steps are pretty simple: present a treat to the dog and give it to him when he exhibits the right behavior. If he doesn’t, take the treat away. We go into details below.

Step 1: Select the right treat

I started Ezra’s training on taking treats gently by using medium sized milk bones. In the beginning, you need to practice with a treat that is:

• A good treat, but not a favorite treat. This is important to prevent the skill from being unnecessarily hard for your dog to learn at first. While any treats are exciting, there is nothing more exciting to a puppy than getting their absolute favorite treat. Your puppy has a higher chance of being less controllable and jumping/biting more for their favorite treat than a treat that is just OK.
• Larger in size. You want a larger treat to protect your fingers. In the beginning, your puppy is going to make a lot of mistakes and won’t be as careful as your hand would probably like. You can still hold a majority in your hand to help hide some of it from the dog so that he doesn’t get excited by quantity. Over time, you can hold larger portions of the treat in your hand to make it more difficult.

Step 2: Reward and enforce good behavior

After you select a treat, it’s time to practice by telling your dog “gentle” and lowering the treat to him. This is the tough part, because our job starts. Our job is to reward on time and enforce on time. If you lower the treat to your dog, say “gentle,” and your dog is actually gentle, then you should praise him and give him the treat. Then practice it again.

If he starts to jump, nip your fingers, or get overly excited, then quickly take your hand away and say “no.” If you feel his teeth on or close to your fingers at all, then you should pull the treat away and say “no.” When he calms down, try it again. If he’s calm and exhibiting the right behavior, tell him he’s a good boy and give him the treat.

Keep repeating this until you get the right behavior 3-5 times in a row.

3 training tips to set your dog up for success (and protect your fingers!)

• In the beginning, practice this behavior with either a larger treat, or a large portion of the treat available for the dog to grab from your hand. This will prevent your dog from hurting you accidentally.
• As your dog improves, make the treat smaller so that your dog has to be especially careful when taking the treat from you to enforce precision.
• As your dog gets better and better, start practicing with a super premium treat like chicken or cheese. Your dog is likely going to be particularly excited to get a super premium treat, so that will be difficult for them to master.

How often should I practice this?

In the beginning, you should practice this like any other skill. Incorporate it into your weekly training routine and practice in your home first. As you see improvement, you can begin to practice in unfamiliar environments or with trusted friends. Your dog will probably pick it up pretty quickly. I started with Ezra around four months and he figured it out by five months. Over time, you’ll only need to work on this skill when you have to, which is when you notice your dog is getting too excited.

Conclusion

Taking a treat gently is not a frequently discussed skill to teach your puppy, but it will save you headaches and fingernails throughout puppyhood. It’ll also give you peace of mind that your dog is learning good manners. All you have to do is get a large treat, and present it to him. If he takes it nicely from your hand, let him have it and tell him he’s a good boy. If he doesn’t, pull it back and tell him no. Repeat it until he gets it right.

What treats did you use to teach your puppy to take a treat gently? Comment and let us know!