Your Cart is Empty
FREE DELIVERY | 100% HAPPINESS GUARANTEE
FREE DELIVERY | 100% HAPPINESS GUARANTEE
May 24, 2026 8 min read
TL;DR: The best training treats for puppies are tiny (pea-sized), soft (so they don't take forever to chew), and high-value (the puppy wants them badly enough to work for them). Top picks: small bits of plain cooked chicken, small cubes of soft cheese (in moderation), cooked sweet potato cubes, single-ingredient freeze-dried meat broken into crumbs, and homemade soft biscuits. Skip large biscuits, crunchy treats that take long to chew, and anything calorie-dense that blows through your puppy's daily budget in a single session.
Puppy training is mostly a question of repetition. A puppy learning "sit" might need 30 to 50 reps to get reliable on the cue. A puppy learning their name might need 100 reps in the first week. That's a lot of treats. If each treat is 15 to 25 calories (standard "training treats"), you're easily feeding a second dinner of treats every day, which causes weight problems, GI issues, and a puppy who's too full to want the next reward.
This guide covers what makes a treat actually work for training (not just what's marketed that way), the best picks across categories, calorie budgets by puppy size, and how to use treats effectively in real training sessions.
Pea-sized. Smaller than that for tiny puppies. The size matters more than the calorie count, because puppies eat by volume and reward, not by mass. A pea-sized piece of chicken is just as motivating as a full-sized treat, but it uses 1/5 the calories.
Soft treats are eaten in 1 to 2 seconds. Crunchy biscuits take 5 to 10 seconds to chew. In a training session, every extra second of chewing is a second the puppy isn't paying attention to you. Speed matters when you're trying to get 20 reps in 5 minutes.
"High-value" means the puppy actually cares about it. Boring treats (a dry biscuit they get every day) don't motivate as well as something they only get during training. Save the chicken bits or cheese cubes for training sessions, so the puppy associates training with the good stuff.
If you're using treats outside or on the go, they need to not be messy. Soft moist treats that get peanut butter on your pocket aren't ideal. Slightly drier or freeze-dried options work better for portability.
Puppy GI tracts are more sensitive than adult ones. Stick to single-ingredient or simple-ingredient treats during the first year. Avoid heavily processed treats, artificial colors, and high-fat options that can trigger pancreatitis or GI upset.
The gold standard for training treats. Boil or bake plain (no salt, no skin, no bones), cool, cut into pea-sized pieces. Calorie cost: ~2 to 3 calories per pea-sized piece. Almost every puppy will work for chicken.
Prep tip: cook 2 or 3 chicken breasts on Sunday, dice small, store in 2-day portions in the fridge. Freeze the rest. Pull out as needed.
High value, soft, easy to portion. Calorie cost: ~5 to 10 calories per pea-sized cube depending on the cheese. Use sparingly because cheese is high in fat and dairy can trigger loose stools in some puppies. Stick to low-lactose options like mozzarella, Swiss, or cheddar in small amounts.
Skip the high-fat or high-sodium cheeses (blue cheese, stilton, processed slices).
Soft, naturally sweet, low calorie. Bake or boil sweet potato, cube into pea-sized pieces, refrigerate. Calorie cost: ~3 to 5 calories per piece. Good for puppies that need a lower-fat training option.
Freeze-dried liver, chicken, or salmon. Most off-the-shelf "treat-sized" pieces are 15 to 25 calories, but the trick is breaking each piece into 5 to 8 smaller crumbs. Same smell, same flavor, much lower calorie per reward.
Calorie cost per crumb: ~2 to 5 calories. Strong smell makes these high-value for many puppies.
Same idea as chicken. Lean beef or plain turkey breast, cooked plain and cubed small. Useful for puppies that are allergic to chicken or for variety.
You can bake training-sized biscuits at home. Mix 1/2 cup canned pumpkin, 1 egg, 1.5 cups oat flour. Roll thin, cut into tiny rounds (1/4 inch), bake at 350F for 10 to 12 minutes. Soft, low-cal (~3 to 5 calories each), and use clean ingredients.
Our Baked Biscuit Starter Kit works for this if you'd rather skip ingredient sourcing.
If you need maximum high-value emergency motivation (introducing a difficult cue, working around major distractions), tiny pieces of plain unseasoned hot dog work as a backup. Boil first to render out some of the fat, slice thin, dice small. Calorie and sodium cost is real, so don't use these as a regular training treat. Useful for occasional "I need to break through to this puppy" sessions.
Puppies need more calories per pound than adults to support growth, but treats should still stay around 5 to 10 percent of daily calories (lower end for puppies to leave room for nutritionally complete meals).
The math holds: if you use pea-sized treats at 2 to 3 calories each, you can run multiple solid training sessions per day without busting the budget. If you use 15+ calorie treats, you're done after one session.
5 to 10 minutes max for young puppies. Their attention spans are limited. Three short sessions across the day work better than one 30 minute session.
Stop while the puppy is still engaged and just did something well. Don't grind until they're tired and frustrated.
For breakthroughs (first time they nail a new cue), give 3 to 5 small treats in a row, not just one. The brain learns from intensity.
Save the chicken and cheese for hardest reps. Use lower-value treats (sweet potato cubes, mini biscuits) for easier reps the puppy already knows. This way the puppy stays motivated for new challenges.
You need fast access. Fumbling with a bag while the puppy waits kills momentum. A treat pouch on your hip lets you reward in under a second.
The reward should come within 1 to 2 seconds of the desired behavior. Otherwise the puppy doesn't connect the action to the reward.
A "yes" or a clicker sound marks the exact moment the puppy did the right thing, even if the treat arrives a second later. Pair the marker with treats consistently for 1 to 2 weeks and the marker itself becomes rewarding.
Once a behavior is reliable (90+ percent success on cue), start rewarding intermittently rather than every time. The puppy keeps working because they don't know when the reward is coming, which is more motivating than reliable rewards.
Say the puppy's name, treat the second they look at you. 20 to 30 reps a day. Use pea-sized chicken or cheese, high-value. Calorie cost: ~50 to 90 calories per day during the active learning period.
Lure with a treat to get the position, mark the moment they hit the position, treat. Once they get it, ditch the lure and just cue, mark, treat. 15 to 25 reps per session, 2 to 3 sessions per day.
Toss treats into the crate. Let the puppy go in and out freely. Eventually treat for going in on cue. The treats here are about positive association, not formal training reps. Use whatever lower-value option is convenient.
Treat at your hip every few steps when the puppy is walking calmly next to you. This is a high-frequency reward situation, you might use 50+ treats in a 10 minute walk. Tiny, low-calorie picks essential.
This is where high-value backup treats matter. Use chicken or cheese for the hardest distractions. Drop back to lower-value treats once the puppy is reliable in calmer settings.
Always pick soft for training. Crunchy treats are fine for downtime (a single biscuit after a walk) but they slow down training reps. A crunchy treat takes 5 to 10 seconds to chew. In that window, the puppy isn't paying attention to you, and your next cue lands with reduced engagement.
Soft treats (chicken, cheese, sweet potato cubes, freeze-dried meat crumbs, soft biscuits) are eaten in 1 to 2 seconds and the puppy is immediately ready for the next rep.
Our Baked Biscuit mixes are useful for training if you bake them in smaller training-sized rounds (1/2 inch instead of full biscuit shapes). About 5 to 8 calories per small piece. Real ingredients, no preservatives, no artificial colors.
Our Pupsicle Mixes aren't really training treats (they're a frozen snack at about 20 calories each), but they're great as an end-of-training-day reward or as crate-time enrichment after a tough training session.
Best training treats for puppies are pea-sized, soft, and high-value. Plain cooked chicken bits are the gold standard. Small cheese cubes, cooked sweet potato cubes, and broken-up freeze-dried meat all work well. Keep treats at 5 to 10 percent of daily calories, which means single-digit calorie per piece for most puppies. Mix treat values (save the best stuff for the hardest reps). Reward fast, use a marker word or clicker, and fade treats once behaviors are reliable. Skip crunchy treats during training (they slow you down) and high-fat treats (they upset puppy stomachs).
If your puppy isn't motivated by treats at all, try training before meals when they're hungrier. If still no luck, swap toys for treats, some puppies are play-motivated rather than food-motivated.
Get 10% off your first order when you sign up for updates from us. We solemnly vow not to spam you or share your email.