07 JanEpisode 110 | Dog Training Q and A! 1/7/2021: Lickable Treats
This is a bonus episode: A recording of a live Q and A.
In this episode, Annie discusses why she loves using viscous treats with dogs, and reviews some of her favorite types of lickable treats. All of them can be found at storeforthedogs.com.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Liquid Treat Dispenser and Suction Liquid Treat Dispenser bottles
Bark Pouch – Beef and Liverwurst
Bark Pouch – Sardines and Cream Cheese
Transcript:
Annie:
Today, I actually want to answer a question that came to me from my husband. As I mentioned on the podcast last week, we have a brand new puppy. Her name is Poppy, and it's been a lot of fun. She's really a wonderful, wonderful girl. And my husband and I were talking and he said what has changed for you? Or, I guess he said, what do you think has changed in the world of dog training since you last had a puppy, which was in 2005, when I first got my dear my dear dog Amos.
And it's a big question to answer for me, because I really knew nothing about dog training when I got him, and really didn't get into it until he was about five years old. So for me, so much has changed. In the world of training and pet care, I think a lot has changed too, I think for the better.
So he asked me this question and I felt like God, there's almost too much there for me to answer in any kind of concise way. But I thought, there's definitely one thing that I had no idea about when that when I first got Amos and that I think probably a lot of dog owners still don't know about.
And this is a certain kind of product that I think can make such a huge difference in any training. But particularly when you're working with a puppy and this is a product under the category heading lickable treats. Not sure the word lickable is actually a word because I feel like whenever I type it, it gets a red squiggly line under it. But that's what I call these kinds of treats. Treats that can be licked, consumed with the tongue.
So I just thought I would talk about some of my favorite lickable treats. Although first, perhaps I should say why I think these are so valuable to us when we're working with dogs. First of all, as a dog trainer, I feel like I constantly have crumbs in my pockets. I feel like one of the downsides of the trade is that my hands are always kind of gross. And so it's really nice to give a dog something that is in a tube where you never actually have to handle you know, lamb lung, turkey hearts, lots of things that are frankly, kind of gross. And these lickable treats make that easier to not actually have to physically handle this stuff.
Also, licking is very soothing for dogs. That is certainly a bonus. And there are lots of situations where you want your dog to not waste a lot of time chewing and swallowing things. You just want them to kind of enjoy something and keep going. So that's one nice thing about using these kinds of treats.
You can use them when you're walking. Great for outdoor work. Great for walking because you know, you don't have to wear a treat pouch. You don't have to stop and hand something crumbly to your dog and wait for your dog to chew it and swallow it. You can just present one of these lickable yummy things at your knee or wherever, and they lick it and move on.
So I'm going to start with the very first type of liquid treat dispenser that I discovered which we now sell at School for the Dogs. And I'll tell you the little funny story about these. This is, we call it the liquid treat dispenser. For those of you who are not watching, but are listening, how would I describe it? It's like a little silicone. I mean, it kind of looks like a travel shampoo bottle, like a squat little travel shampoo bottle. Almost like a really big Hershey kiss in shape with a top that opens and closes.
So I first discovered these at Duane Reed, which is a drug store chain in New York City. There used to be one on my corner, and they were selling them as salad dressing transport containers, I guess. Which I just thought was so funny because like, I'm just the kind of person that would never think to transport salad dressing anywhere. So the fact that there was like a product devoted to transporting salad dressing really made me giggle.
But the second I saw it, I thought, you know what? I have an idea of what I could do with these. And I'd seen tube type dispensers that were sold. I think there's a company called Paw tube that makes like silicone tube dispensers that you can put stuff in for dogs.
But the reason that I actually liked this salad dressing transporter container thing a little bit better was it's open at the top. It doesn't have any like little flappy things which some tube dispensers have. I don't know what you call those sort of little plastic petals at the top, that, when you push something through it can make a little, a little pop of air that I think can bother a dog. This is just a hole at the top and it fits really nicely in your hand.
Anyway, I was teaching a class. This was in the origin story of School for the Dogs, there was a year where we were teaching out of a dog daycare because, our initial studio, which was in my apartment, there was a big fire. So there was like six months from the period of time when we were teaching in my apartment to when we were teaching in our first storefront location.
I was at this dog daycare. And there was like a Duane Reade across the street. And I was on my way to class. I went to the Duane Reade. I saw they had some of these. So I grabbed one to show to the students in my class. I guess I was just using it. It wasn't really even showing it. Filled it up with peanut butter, which was great for use in these kinds of things.
You know, you always want to make sure you get one without xylitol. I find the kind of like Skippy or Jif creamy peanut butters actually tend to do a little bit better in these tubes than the more like natural ones, which can sometimes separate.
Anyway. I grabbed one, filled it up, was using it in class, and everyone in this class across from Duane Reade was like, Oh my God, what is that? Where did you get that? And I said, Oh, you know, they sell it for salad dressing. I got it across the street at the Duane Reed. This was before we had our own shop.
After class ended, I cleaned up. An hour later left this dog daycare, went across the street to the Duane Reade to get something else, and noticed that they were totally cleared out of these salad dressing containers! Everyone in the class had gone to buy one, and I bet they all used them and got good use out of them.
Anyway, you can still fill it with cream cheese, put liverwurst in it. You could put, what else have I put in it, like spray cheese, you can make your own mixture. You don't want something too viscous in this kind of thing. You kind of want something like that peanut buttery consistency.
If you want to use a liquid treat dispenser with something a little bit more thick, you can get like a camping tube. They sell them on Amazon. They're like big tubes that are open at the top that you can then kind of like roll. They come with a thing so you can like roll down the top to seal the top. And those are good if you're going to use something like actual canned dog food.
Traditional travel shampoo container that has a suction cup on it. I don't love that one as much just because it does have those sort of like pedal things that come out of the top opening that can make that little burst of air, which I don't love, but it is kind of cool because it has a suction cup on it. So it can be a little bit hands-free if you need to suction it to the fridge or something, let your dog lick out of it while you're brushing your dog or that kind of thing.
You can also use baby food pouches. For my two year old, she still gets quite a few meals a week out of the little tubes that they sell for little kids, baby foods. Some of them are meat-based and some of them are fruit-based. Most of them have ingredients that are really fine for dogs. And actually she used to really enjoy sharing her baby food pouches with my dog, my old dog Amos.
So that's also an option as are Bark Pouches, which are shaped pretty much just like those baby food pouches. But they are made specifically for dogs they're made by a woman whose name is kind of hilariously Brandy Barker, a dog trainer in Chicago. And she makes these very popular Bark pouches. We do sell them, and she actually has recently formulated them so that they are shelf stable. They used to have to be put in the refrigerator or freezer. I guess they still have to be refrigerated after you opened them. But another very popular option.
Just a couple more lickable treats I wanted to show you. West Paw, fabulous company based out of Montana, we sell a lot of their products. They make the Topl which is kind of like a Kong alternative oh which I’m a big fan. They recently released two flavors of treats that come in tubes. One is peanut butter and banana. But the one that I actually liked better for use with dogs is made from beef liver and pumpkin.
I don't dislike the peanut butter and banana one, but I'm just fine giving regular peanut butter to dogs. And I find that their peanut butter banana tends to separate a little bit in the tube. So you get this like squirt of oily stuff when you first use it. Whereas the beef liver and pumpkin, which is also gluten and grain-free, does not tend to separate.
I think these were designed to squeeze into one of their toys, like on the back of it, I'm looking at it right now. There's actually a picture of a topple, and it shows how you can squeeze this into the topple. And I have certainly done that. However, you can also just let your dog lick the end of this little tube that's like a metal tube, Kind of looks like a metal toothpaste tube. And it's a great thing.
What does it say on the back? It says, made with beef liver and pumpkin with a boost of beef, bone broth and cinnamon, and a mess free dispenser. Serve right off a spoon for instant delight or in a West Paw treat toy mixed with dry kibble, with dry treats or kibble. Yeah, so I use it differently than it says on the tube. I just squeeze it and let the dog lick it right from the opening.
And you know, when I'm using these kinds of tube treats like to do something like a hand touch, I'll usually have, like, if I'm doing a hand touch I kind of make a little dance out of it. I'll have the treat and the clicker in one hand for me, usually my left hand. My right hand will be the one that the dog is touching. Whether they're touching like a target stick or my fingers, I'll hold the tube in my clicker behind my back with my left hand, reach my hand out for the dog to touch. The dog touches it, I click and then switch hands.
So now my left hand comes out. They like that. And now I switch back again. And that is basically the best dance move I have in my entire dance repertoire. [laughs] Not a very good dancer, but I can do that move. Which I created myself.
Similar to the West Paw tube treats is Kalles creamed smoked roe, which is also a dog treat kind of of my own invention. Kalles is actually a Swedish delicacy sold — either you can buy it in New York city at Ikea, or a very fine imported food supermarket type place, or you can buy it at School for the Dogs where we sell it for consumption by dogs.
Now, I was attracted to this stuff for use with dogs because I just thought, there must be… I think I was traveling, maybe I was in Italy and they have a lot of things in tubes, foods in tubes, more than we tend to have in the US. Especially like fishy kinds of things in tubes. And we had a lot of clients that were using the bark pouches. But at the time they weren't really shelf stable. some people were having a hard time getting them, and I thought there must be other things that come already in tubes that we could give to dogs.
So I started to sort of do some research and found Kalles creamed smoked roe. And dogs do seem to enjoy it and like the West Paw treat, it can just be licked out of the tube. It's actually really like pretty much the same exact size and shape. And it's good. I've tried it, it's sort of like, it's sort of sweet and salty. I mean, again, it is made for humans.
I do suggest going easy on this. It's not meant for dogs. It does contain salt, sugar both of which dog shouldn't have a whole lot of. But that's another nice thing about these kinds of lickable treats is your dog only needs to get like a lick or two. They're not going to like consume the tube at once. Really it would take a while. It should take a while for any of these kinds of tubes to be totally consumed.
And the last thing I thought I would mention that I certainly did not know about when I first got my puppy 15, 16 years ago is bone broth. There are lots of bone broths now made just for dogs. I'm not sure what is the difference between human grade bone broth for dogs and bone broth that is sold for humans, to be totally honest, except maybe marketing.
But we've been carrying bone broth from Open Farm, a Toronto based company. Very, very good. They make very good products. Again, human grade. The one that we carry contains Turkey, bone broth, carrots, pumpkin, parsley, tumeric, and cinnamon. And I've been giving this to Poppy as an ice cube. Been just making ice cubes out of these and she gets one or two of them at a time, and it keeps her busy. It's sort of like a, just a healthy thing.
However, you could also make this into like basically a Popsicle and let your dog lick the Popsicle during training. I have actually not experimented too much using this for training, but since I've been giving her these ice cubes, it occurred to me that that would certainly be another sort of lickable treat that you could use in training that is super healthy and enjoyable by the dog. And won't break the bank, and will not get your hands gross.
So those are some of my favorite treats that can be licked. We do carry all of these things in our East village shop, which is now open every day of the week 12 to four. Still a limited COVID hours, but more COVID hours than before. And also of course, at storeforthedogs.com. Yeah, that's about it.
Alright, thank you for being here. And if you try any of these with your dogs, if you have some lickable treats that I don't know about, I would love to learn more. So please let me know as always. You can reach me at annie@schoolforthedogs.com. All right. Thanks for being here. Bye.
