Want to Freshen Up Your Training Treats? Your Pup’s Palate May Surprise You

Let your pup try some new tastes and smells. photo: Alisha Ardiana

I grew up on the East Coast. In the summer we had a vegetable garden with all the basics: tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, and carrots. But my family’s dietary habits generally were pretty meat-and-potatoes. We didn’t venture into fancy vegetables, and if we had something like asparagus, it was typically frozen or canned.

Would you believe I once was afraid of avocados? That’s how limited I was in my exposure to fresh produce.

Of course, I had a lot of culture shock when I moved to San Francisco. I learned that so many foods I thought I disliked were actually delicious when you bought them at the farmers market: beets, kale, even Brussels sprouts. I’m also now ruined for out-of-season berries and stone fruits and rarely buy fruit at the grocery store anymore. I would rather wait for the insanely delicious seasonal options.

How does this relate to dogs? I think we’ve lost sight of what dogs can actually eat.

I’m not here to tell you what to feed your dog on a daily basis. I have zero interest in entering into the raw versus kibble debate. I’m happy to feed my dog fresh food, but that’s not the point of this training advice.

Instead, when you consider training treats, I encourage you to start thinking about what novel smells and textures could appeal to your dog. Did you ever have Covid and lose your sense of taste? If so, you probably quickly realized how important texture is to enjoying your food.

When it comes to dogs, smell is the most important factor, followed by texture, and then taste. In fact, dogs don’t have a lot of taste buds, resulting in one-fifth to one-sixth the tasting power of humans.

As you may have noticed, we no longer live in a colonial era. So I fail to understand why everything we give our dogs is dehydrated, freeze-dried, or cooked beyond recognition. To counter this trend, I’m encouraging my training clients to explore sharing fresh food treats with their dogs.

Dogs are social creatures and the definition of social is enjoying a shared experience together. One simple way to socialize is to share some of your meal with your dog. And not surprisingly, most dogs are super happy to share that roast chicken, steak, or pork chop they smell on your plate.

But what’s really fun is when my clients discover their dogs like foods that neither of us would expect. One of my clients found that his dog, Morris, really loved to share apples with him. It actually got to the point where he couldn’t eat an apple without Morris harassing him, which sometimes left my client a bit irritated. But to me, this was an awesome discovery.

Now Morris and his human can go hiking together, and rather than worrying about a treat pouch, my client can simply take an apple in his pocket. If Morris starts to go too far, all he needs to do is call him, take a bite of the apple, and Morris comes running to share it with him. How much fun is that?

I have another client who began doing scent work trials with her dog, and she was looking for different food treats to inspire him. Much to our delight, we discovered that Linus will work enthusiastically for cantaloupe. Another client’s dog will do tricks for watermelon or strawberries, and yet another will allow nail trims with no drama in exchange for roasted carrots.

Of course, there are definitely foods your dog must never eat, including grapes, raisins, onions, and chocolate. But there are so many delicious safe options out there to try. And think how much more fun it would be to share your popcorn with your pup versus buying a bag of fancy freeze-dried liver bites.

Something else to think about: roughly 75% of the dogs on this planet are street dogs. These dogs live without kibble, without human supervision, and honestly, without a lot of significant reactivity. They learn how to coexist. They learn how to share resources when necessary and also how to strike out on their own to scavenge and beg.

I recently had the good fortune to meet Sindhoor Pangal, who runs BHARCS, a canine behavior academy based in Bangalore. Pangal also studies the street dogs of India and she explained that the dogs she observes are fairly selective. They go through everyone’s trash, and if they like a family’s trash, they will do their best to adopt them. Of course, I automatically assumed that meat eaters would be the most popular families, but Pangal said this isn’t the case. In fact, many of the street dogs actually prefer lentils. Which is the point. They have a preference and they have a choice.

How much dietary choice do we give our dogs on a daily basis?

It’s been inspiring for me to explore fresh foods with our dog, learning her likes and dislikes. I’m discovering what textures are important to her and which ones she finds distasteful. She’s the only dog I’ve ever met who will reject baby food meat, but that’s her choice. In fact, her favorite training treats are typically whatever I’m eating: a lick of Straus yogurt, a scrap of guinea hen from San Francisco Raw Feeders, or a bite of local black cod.

Some may say my dog is picky. Or spoiled. I prefer to think that she has a refined palate that has only become more selective as she discovers what fresh food can actually taste like.

San Francisco helped me learn how wonderful fresh local food can be. I feel it’s only fair to give my dog that same opportunity.