coachies choice... when stuck in a rut, (Coachies Training Treats)

Member Name: pania22

Product:	Coachies Training Treats
Date:	13/07/09 (21 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: lovely meaty smell, no additives or nasty products

Disadvantages: doesnt capture the interest for long, a little bland

As a dog trainer in training I am constantly looking for the ideal, healthy motivator for my charges. Recently I have settled on chopped up sausage and cheese to tempt my canine students into good behaviour.
Yesterday I had a client to see quite some distance from where I live and being a spanner and leaving in a rush and a flap I managed to leave my entire training kit at home, complete with lovely tempting yummy sausage and cheese. (the poor dog missed out there!)
As a result of this, at 1430 on a sunday afternoon pets at home was pretty much my only choice.... and I knew it was going to be an expensive one at that!
Browsing the shelves I found a tub of "coachies" training treats flavoured with chicken, beef and liver. They were in a plastic 300g tub with a very sturdy plastic lid. I was concerned that the container wouldn't stand up to the rigours of training and clumsy me would drop and crack the plastic on
the pot. I have also been guarded previously regarding the use of ready made shaped treats as they just dont seem to have the smell or texture or be "high value" enough to motivate the dog to the level required for recall training and heel work etc. However running short of time and unable to find a small enough "fresh" treat, I settled on these.

Outside my clients house I emptied a good quantity of these into my pocket (usually i'd use a treat bag but this was at home, complete with treats, so a pocket it would have to be.) the shapes within the pot varied between hearts, circles, triangles and what I can only assume were stars... the colours were pale which was good to see as it meant that additives were at a minimum although the pot did declare the rather tasty addition of "blood" as a colourant :o/
I noticed immediately that the treats held a fantastically strong meaty smell, just what you want to capture a dogs interest when training heelwork, after all what motivation will woofbark have to stick with you when there is much more smelly and exciting rabbit trails/fox poo to investigate!
Walking into the house I took a seat and the smell was obviously quite pungent as the little fellas nose was stuck to the outside of my pocket. A good thing as it gave me chance to see the wee mans dominiant behaviour and correct it, demonstrating to the owners how to do so in the process.
These were currying favour with me atleast! and now to see if they were a hit with DaveDog too!!

We took him out to the garden to try again with the clicker training and to use the treats as a reward. I can happily say the first few treats were gobbled up without a seconds hesitation. After this however the situation changed and the treats just didnt provide the same pull as fresh treats. He became disinterested in them and other motivational methods were utilised instead.

These treats hold only one calorie per treat so therefore there isn't much concern of pup becoming a fatty during some energetic training sessions and they are also GM free and free from gluten, wheat and artificial flavours so pretty much guaranteed not to set off an allergic reaction. Coachies are also available in "puppy" and when I have cause to use them i shall review them too.

Overall I will continue to use them and will more than likely buy them again. they were significant enough value for money to justify their purchase and worked well enough but I will intersperse them with fresh treats to keep the interest going with the dogs. I would recommend these as an occasional treat during training but will stick with more high value treats with my clients.

The cost from a pet store was £3.91 but vary between different pet stores and on line.

Summary: think i've said it all already. :o)