Cheesey? Treat Hierarchy

Dogs are a species of animal that actually prefer to work for their food. The absolute ideal scenario would be to measure out their food in the morning and dip into this throughout the day for small, frequent training sessions. This serves multiple purposes. The main ones being they only receive the recommended daily amount, they are being rewarded for training/working, and it is nutritional, balanced treats being given as rewards. I often hear that an owners dog is not food motivated or they have to use cocktail sausages or cheese to get any work out of them. Don't get me wrong, these high value treats have a place, but being high in fat or salt or both, being the default treat is not that place. Regular training sessions for their regular food also gives us room to move if we are introducing harder sessions in more challenging environments. If a task is harder for our dogs and we need to motivate them more, then this is when we may need to increase the value of our rewards. Having levels of treats and their value can really super charge some of our training sessions but a treat hierarchy can only be achieved if we normalise working for normal food.