Hey Tribe,
For the most part, Fly is a treat motivated gal. She has her favorites, she has some she will
only eat if she’s in the mood, and she has some that are reserved for specific
times or situations. I thought it would
be fun to let you inside our cupboard and give you a chance to know our girl a
bit better.
#10
Smoked Pig Ears from American Farms. Fly will only eat these if she is in the mood, which is rare. Usually when I give her one, she frowns at
me, holds the ear in her mouth like she wishes she had hands to carry it, and
proceeds to bury it under her bed or a rug.
The ears are slightly greasy, so I have to remove the ear from its place
of buried shame before it sweats its grease all over the place. In the rare event she does eat it, she’s
absolutely in love with it’s smoky flavor and parchment-esq appearance. Be warned: the ear flakes into several dozen
tiny pieces as she crunches on it; Fly can’t be bothered to clean up after
herself, so I, the human servant, must follow after with a vacuum.
#9
American cheese slices.
As a baby, Fly ate bits of these cheese squares for her reward when we
were training to sit and down and leash walk.
I would leave them on the counter to air out and become brittle and then
put them in my pocket so I could break off tiny pieces to dole out to her. They worked well, with enough flavor to be
tempting, and I could manage the size of the piece I gave her. Two slices would last us an entire 20-minute
training session, if I broke up the pieces small enough. The nice thing about using these cheese
slices is that I already had them in my fridge; a downside is that the slices
become a tiny bit greasy when left out to dry, so I had to be careful about
which pocket I put the slice into or use a bag.
#8
Jerky Treats with American Beef. These babies are our go-to snack for everyday consumption. I always have a stick or two in my jacket or
pants pocket when we go outside for any reason or go for car rides and store
visits. I break off a tiny piece from
the stick to reward her for correct behaviors.
The sticks aren’t greasy (yay), they smell decent, and are flat and
easily pocket friendly. They do dry out
and become hard and rock-like if left in your pocket for a few days – this
doesn’t bother Fly, but it does make them more difficult to break into smaller
pieces for portion control.
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| Full size treat vs. the size piece Fly actually gets. |
#7
Rawhide Rolls. Fly’s most common treat, besides #8 are
rawhide rolls. She will ask for one in
the evenings as the family is reading or watching TV. They are her self-selected activity
treat and she usually has two or three spread about the house in varying degrees of chewedness. One roll will usually last a few
weeks to a month before she chews it down to a small 4-inch nub that I throw
away, for fear of her swallowing it whole and choking on it. To be honest, I do not like the raw hides for
that very reason. It is too easy for her
to chew off a chunk and swallow it and possibly choke; she is never allowed to
have these unsupervised.
#6
Dental Chews. I brush Fly’s teeth in the evenings before we go to bed, but sometimes I am
pretty tired or just not up to the 10 minute ritual of cleaning her teeth. Enter the Dental Chews. There are several brands and Fly likes them all. To make a box last longer, I break the chews
into two pieces and she gets half one night and the second half another
night. She likes them well enough that
she cleans up the crumbs by herself, which is nice, because she usually jumps
up into my bed to eat them. They come in
a resealable bag, which I recommend you take the extra two seconds to properly
close, as these will also dry out and become rock hard if exposed to air for
too long. Don’t want to break Fly’s
teeth, just clean them.
#5
Peanut Butter Pretzels.
If Fly even hears these rattle about in their container from across the
house, she will be sitting and demanding one before you even have the container
open for yourself. We’ve taken to hiding
two or three about the house and then telling her to “Find” and she eagerly
searches for her beloved people snacks.
I’m pretty sure TheFather now buys them for Fly, rather than for
us. Once Fly has one in her mouth, she
likes to roll it about on her tongue, savoring the salty goodness, before
crunching through the baked pretzel to taste the peanut butter morsel hidden
within its shell. Watching her, you’d think
you were observing a connoisseur of fine snacking treats.
#4
Zukes Mini Naturals, Chicken. These little pebble like treats are already the perfect size to give to Fly, so
I don’t have to break them up as I reward her for good behavior. We use them solely when clipping her
nails. She sees and smells the bag and
knows what we will be doing. It’s a
ritual and it seems to work. Fly adores
these little pellets of deliciousness and they smell like they would indeed be
tasty if I were a dog. She willingly
rolls onto her back so I can have easy access to her paws and I give her a Zuke
every two or three nails that are clipped; she works it around in her mouth
with easy pleasure and I don’t have to worry that she is going to choke on such
a small piece while lying on her back. I
have my hands full of clippers and paws, so being able to easily grab a small
treat is a welcome luxury.
(Sorry, no pic, we're out of these treats at the moment)
#3
String Cheese. Not much
can capture Fly’s attention when she is excited about something else. Except for string cheese: it is like a siren
song to her. We use these sticks of
cheese solely for Barn Hunt. Fly is
always a bit a lot excited when we sit in the blind, waiting for our
turn, with the close proximity of other dogs she isn’t allowed to play with and
the musky scent of rats hanging thick in the air. It’s just too much for her. She screams and whines and barks out her
feelings for the entire building to hear, until I whip out a stick of string
cheese – then she is all attentive and eagerly licks her lips in anticipation
of the cheese. I open just the top and
let her lick and chew the top of the cheese and make her work to get down
through the plastic to the rest of the cheese stick as I hold it for her. Depending on our run order, I can make a
single stick last until it is our turn, unless we run last, then we will be out
of cheese stick and she’s back to screaming with impatience. Oh well.
Maybe they will think twice about making us run last every. single.
time.
#2
Fish. Freeze dried
fish, to be exact. We had left over
salmon and halibut fillets that were going uneaten in our freezer, so TheMother
cut them into bite sized pieces and popped them into our home freeze
dryer. They came out perfectly dry, non
oily, and held their shape relatively well.
Fly loves them. She takes her
time eating the fish, so as to get as much out of each bite as possible. I use them for serious training, such as
Search and Rescue training. She is
willing to work for her “salmon,” as I generically call it, and it has become a
very high value prize for her; as such, I usually reserve it for when I really
need her to work for me. “Salmon” =
serious business + serious rewards.
 |
| These pieces are pretty big and I'd probably break them in half as I give them to her. |
#1 Chicken
To say Fly loves chicken would be an inexcusable
understatement. She would do anything
for chicken. Her love for chicken is
worthy of poetry. Chicken pieces, in a
plastic baggie, helped us successfully practice for our CGC test, because she
was so focused on my pocket that she didn’t have a single thought for the dogs
and sounds around her. TheMother and I
are very picky about our consumption of chicken – no fat or bloody spots or
anything other than pure meat – and Fly reaps the benefits of this, because she
is given all our cast offs. TheMother
will put the scraps on a plate and microwave them until cooked. Fly knows what is happening and will sit
staring up at the microwave as it turns her beloved chicken around and around;
she is not patient as the chicken cast-offs cool and will frantically make
known her demands as she prances in front of the cooling plate. When offered her heart’s desire, she doesn’t
bother chewing, but practically inhales the chicken as if she needed it more
than air. Chicken is not something to be
savored, but a thing that is to be absorbed into her very essence.
#0
Finally, it is necessary that I point out that there is not a treat in
the world that is of any interest to Fly if she is focused on a perceived enemy
or danger. She will literally spit steak
out of her mouth or ignore it entirely, as if to say, "ain't nobody got time for snacks right now." There is no competing with her genetic heritage: it is the most frustrating thing about
Karelians and exactly why I love the breed.
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| See that bag of trail mix at her feet? Not even interested. |
So there you have our top ten treats and a bit of insight
into the mind and personality that is Fly.
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| Yes, she loves berries too. Maybe we will do an all natural treat post? |
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