A reliable recall is something all dog owners want. It gives you and your dog so much more freedom and opportunity, and most importantly, it keeps your dog safe.
Because that’s what we all really want as dog owners, letting them off the lead totally stress-free.
But a reliable recall doesn’t just happen. The world is exciting. There are distractions all around, there are dogs, there are smells and sounds, and naturally they want to explore.
Recall needs a lot of training, and it can take a long time to get it right.
One of the best places to start when it comes to recall is having the best treats for recall training.
In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know to choose the best treats for recall training for your dog.
Why Owners Struggle With Recall
I’m sure most dog owners have experienced this exact thing. You recall your dog, they quickly look over to you and then go straight back to what they were doing and totally ignore you. Then they come back a minute later when they’ve finished what they were doing.
And what’s happening there, to put it simply, is the environment is more valuable to them than what you’re offering. That smell or dog they’ve met is much more interesting, and that is where recall fails.
To your dog, the environment isn’t just interesting; it’s genuinely rewarding.
It’s not stubbornness, and it’s not a badly trained dog.
Your dog is deciding between what you’re offering and what they were doing.
This is exactly why the treat you use for recall matters so much. If your dog ignores you and the treat you’re holding, it’s not because they don’t understand; they know exactly what you want; they’re just choosing the environment because in that moment it is more valuable.
This is where high-value training treats come in, and why using the right one is often the single biggest fix for a recall that “never quite works.”
What Makes the Best Dog Treats for Recall?
The best training treats for recall are those that are really high-value to your dog. They’ve got a lot of very valuable things to beat, so getting the treats right is the first step to improving your dog’s recall.
The only job of a treat for successful recall is to make coming back worth it. For most dogs, that means a reward with a strong smell, high meat content, rich flavour, and be soft or quick to eat.
Here’s why each of those actually matters:
- A strong smell is important because your dog can’t see what’s in your hand from the other side of a field, so the smell needs to do a lot of work before they’ve even seen the treat.
- High meat content because the more real meat in a treat, the stronger the smell and the better the taste. Treats made with fillers, derivatives and a lot of grains just don’t compete, and your dog can tell the difference.
- Rich flavour ties in with meat content, but it’s worth mentioning out on its own. A treat you know your dog loves is doing half the job for you before you’ve even recalled them.
- Soft or quick to eat. Recall treats need to be eaten in a couple of seconds, not take thirty seconds of chewing. The moment your dog stops to chew, their attention’s left you again, and you’ve lost the momentum of the recall.
Everyday treats, kibble, or biscuit treats rarely tick any of these boxes. They might be fine for practising at home with no distractions, but they’re not enough to win against an exciting environment full of smells, dogs, and unpredictable things.
Use a Variety of High Value Treats
It’s worth having a bit of variety in your treat pouch rather than relying on one single treat every time. If your dog gets the exact same thing every single walk, they know exactly what to expect, and it can lose its shine a bit. But the key is making sure every option you’re rotating in is equally high-value, not swapping a great treat for a low-value one just for the sake of variety.
There’s another reason mixing it up works so well, the variety itself becomes part of the reward. Not knowing exactly what’s coming next is genuinely exciting for a dog, it’s the same reason a lucky dip or a surprise gets more of a reaction than something predictable. If your dog never quite knows what’s coming next, that uncertainty adds a bit of extra pull on top of the treat itself.
Which Treats to Avoid for Recall
Just as important as knowing what to look for is knowing what isn’t going to work for your dog’s recall training.
A few examples that aren’t going to improve your dog’s recall are:
- Chews and bones. Long-lasting chews are great for enrichment, but they’re useless when it comes to recall. The whole point of a recall treat is speed and the focus being on you, and anything that takes real chewing turns your dog’s attention to the chew. Save the long-lasting chews for after your training sessions.
- Kibble. It’s fine for easy cues and tricks at home, but nowhere near strong enough in smell, flavour or value to compete once there’s a real distraction involved. If it’s what your dog eats every day, it’s also not interesting enough to feel like a reward. They’ll be having a bowl of it later, so there isn’t much incentive.
- Treats packed out with fillers or derivatives. These types of processed treats have a weaker smell, less flavour, and your dog can tell. If it’s not going to genuinely compete with the environment, it’s not doing its job at all.
- Treats that are too big. Anything you have to break up mid-session slows everything down and makes it harder to keep portions consistent. Go for something naturally small, or easy to snap or cut up into pea-sized pieces.
- Using too many treats. Recall training means a lot of repetition, which means a lot of treats. Keep portions small and factor them into your dog’s daily food. Treats should still make up no more than around 10% of their overall diet, even during an intensive training phase.
Our Recommended Treats for Recall
Our training treats are made with up to 80% real meat, so you’re getting a genuinely strong smell and flavour rather than a treat that’s mostly filler with a bit of meat flavouring added on top. That real meat content is exactly what gives you value when your dog’s weighing it up against everything else going on around them.
Our full range of sausages, slices and strips tick all the boxes from earlier in this guide. They’re soft enough to eat in one bite, made from real meat with no fillers, additives, grains or derivatives.
Sprats are another great one to have in the rotation. They’re naturally high in scent and flavour, which makes them a genuinely high-value treat despite being small and easy to carry, and the strong, fishy smell is exactly the kind of thing that they’re going to notice when deciding whether coming back is worth it.
Keep two or three options like this on rotation, always high-value, and you’ve got what you need to make coming back the easy choice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Something soft, high in real meat, strong-smelling, and small enough to eat in one bite. It needs to be a genuine step up from your dog’s everyday treats, not just another biscuit.
As many small ones as you need; just keep each piece pea-sized and factor the total into your dog’s daily food. Treats overall should be around 10% of their daily diet.
Most dogs are more food motivated than owners think; it’s usually the treat that’s the problem, not the dog. Try something higher-value, softer, and stronger-smelling before assuming food isn’t the answer.
It’s not essential, but it’s one of the best tools for training recall safely, especially in open spaces or anywhere your dog could run into danger before the behaviour’s fully reliable.
Final Thoughts
Recall isn’t about having a magic word that your dog listens to. It’s about making yourself, consistently, the most valuable thing to your dog when they are off lead. That means only using the highest-value reward for recall, and choosing something your dog really loves and can’t get enough of.
Our training treats are made for exactly this job and to get the best results from your training sessions. They’re packed with real meat, no derivatives or fillers, and rated Excellent by All About Dog Food.
