Training Without Treats

Obedience is taught without treats — why?

Stephan Mairesse walking a black dog on leash

A treat only works when nothing more interesting has your dog's attention. The use of treats is fundamentally inefficient for two reasons.

First, when a dog is interested in something more attractive than the food offered to him, he won't listen. If he's about to cross a road to reach a dog he's just spotted and the treat doesn't attract him enough to turn around, I'll let you imagine the result.

Second, there is a behavioral reason. To gain obedience, you must be perceived as the authority figure; therefore, you must hold a dominant status over your dog. A dominant dog would never allow a subordinate to approach its food, yet it can claim food from a subordinate. By letting your dog take a treat directly from your hand, you are actually adopting a submissive posture. This creates a contradiction: on one hand, you give commands; on the other, you allow him to take food from you (while you believe you are giving it, your dog perceives it as taking it from you).

The beige female is dominant over the black dog: she chases the black dog away whenever it tries to approach her food — and, as the dominant, she can just as easily walk over and take the black dog's food herself. What does that tell you about treats?

In recent years, some self-styled experts have claimed dogs no longer function within a strict hierarchy — and even less so with humans, because we're a different species. But the experts who spent decades studying dogs and concluded there IS a hierarchy weren't wrong the whole time — were they simply blind for decades? But how many of them have actually observed a pack? In the end, this is my opinion, and it's built on what I've seen — which is exactly what I show you, through the videos, rather than just argue in words.

I didn't take any of this on faith: I spent six years living with my own ten dogs, plus another ten boarders — none in outdoor kennels, all in my own house — watching their social organization closely enough to see what actually held up.

For anyone who doubts dogs have a hierarchical social system, I don't ask you to take my word for it — the footage shown in the Hierarchy part that I've filmed myself proves it. Nothing here is invented: it's what I've seen, filmed, and put in front of you. And why does a dog keep a hierarchical relationship even with humans, knowing full well that we are not dogs? Because during the social imprinting period — from 3 to 12 weeks old — he lived alongside us.

We've all heard of a dog on the sofa who threatens to bite anyone trying to move him. Or a dog who growls or bites to defend his food. Or a dog who won't let a husband near his wife. These are all everyday examples of hierarchy at work.

Leading a dog is what puts him at ease — it doesn't stop you from giving him affection. You can still pet him and play with him all day long.

To love a dog is to take him for what he is, not for what we'd like him to be — to respect his fundamental needs and his deep nature, and offer him a structured living environment that respects his social codes.

There are training methods far more effective, and far more respectful of a dog's essence, than those using treats. It's high time to look into them, for a genuinely harmonious life with this wonderful animal.

To be clear: I do use positive reinforcement and I insist on it to each of my clients — just not through treats, and not on its own (see "What is my training method?" on the Train Your Dog page).