Ways to Use Your Favorite Pet Treat Bag, TreatTeek!

TreatTeek is a small but mighty treat carrier! It was designed to be easy to carry and super accessible while also being stylish and eco-friendly. TreatTeek can clip onto a lot of things - a leash, belt loop, backpack, car headrest support, life jacket strap, drawstring, a pocket, over a waistband (maybe not the most comfortably, but when you’re wearing yoga pants, it does the trick), and more (really, whatever you can clip a carabiner to!) 

While you can probably use your TreatTeek in a myriad of ways, we wanted to talk about some of our favorite uses! 

• Walking

• Running

• Socialization

• Hiking

• Agility

• Training Tricks

• Posing for Photos

Walking

Walking with Barak is a daily challenge. He gets distracted easily, triggered quickly, and pulls a ton. We realized that we needed to have treats with us at all times in order to better control and redirect Barak’s attention in stressful moments.

Always having a loaded TreatTeek attached to Barak’s leash allows us to be prepared when we need to get his attention on a walk or distract him from a potential trigger nearby.  In addition to helping us have treats handy at all times, TreatTeek saves us from using countless plastic baggies and dealing with treat crumbs or chunks in our pockets (which inevitably get forgotten and found months later).

Running

Back in February, we shared a post about running with your pup. While training your pup to run and even after that, it’s super helpful to have treats handy to reward good behavior, like staying at your side or giving you his attention when you stop. 

Since no one wants jerky dust in their shorts’ pockets, TreatTeek is a great treat carrying option for runs because it clips easily to your leash or running belt without weighing you down!

Hiking 

On Leash

While SoomSoom is sometimes the laziest doggo when it comes to walkies, she LOVES hiking. Give her a good downhill to go down and she RUNS - human at the end of the leash in tow. Barak also loves hiking - indeed, he insists on being the group’s scout, pulling ahead to be at the front of the group. 

While we love seeing the pups enjoy their time outside, we do prefer they walk like civilized doggos instead of behaving like they’ve never walked on leash before. When their inner urges to tug us along shine through, we use treats to reel them in (literally). We’ll always take along two TreatTeeks on hikes so we each have one to work with the pups on their respective issues.

Off Leash

Being urban dwellers, we don’t get to go on off-leash hikes very often. With that said, we’ve had the opportunity to a few times and having treats readily available (and letting the pups know it) has helped us work on their recall. We make sure to fill our TreatTeek with a variety of high-value, smelly treats for these occasions so that the pups are eager to return for a treat when we call them. 

Socialization

Human Socialization 

When we got Barak and SoomSoom, we had “puppy warming” parties so that they could socialize with humans. We wanted them to associate new, strange humans with positive things, so we gave our friends little treat packages to dole out to the pups as they interacted with them during the party. 

While we admittedly had far more success socializing SoomSoom with humans than we did with Barak, we did manage to teach Barak to listen to other humans’ commands for treats. While we wish he were better behaved with other humans, we are grateful that he obeys them for rewards. Indeed, we’ve had several pet sitters have to go through Barak de-sensitization periods, during which they dole out a fair amount of treats while giving him commands and asserting their authority in the process.

TreatTeek makes it so much easier to have treats handy during these socialization moments. Just clip it onto your belt loop or over your waistband to have rewards ready during those precise moments you need them. If you have someone coming over and want your pup to like them, give them the TreatTeek. With any luck, if your pet has gathered that TreatTeek = treats, he’ll associate the human with treat dispensation and be more receptive to them.

Dog Socialization

As with human socialization, we wanted to train the pups to interact appropriately with other dogs. With SoomSoom, this was an easy process - she is naturally friendly and loves playing with other pups. 

Barak, however, was more challenging to socialize. While he enjoys playing with other dogs, he isn’t very good at extracting himself when he’s not having a good time and doesn’t know how to de-escalate. We continuously try to work on this. When visiting with dog friends, we have our TreatTeek handy at all times. When he has a positive interaction with a new or existing dog friend (a friendly sniff, a few moments of positive play), we give him a treat. If he seems to be getting over-excited or things appear to be escalating, we call him over and reward him for disengaging. Through this, we’re able to help him build confidence in interacting with other dogs. 

Agility

We recently started agility training in an effort to 1) work on our connection with the pups, 2) work on the pups’ general responsiveness to verbal and non-verbal cues, 3) tire out the pups physically and mentally. While training the pups to use some of the equipment is easy enough, some of the equipment is more challenging to work with, whether because it requires more focus or because it’s frightening. 

SoomSoom, for example, is *not* a fan of the tunnel or chute. Only by coaxing her with treats were we able to slowly train her to go through them. The teeter has been an even bigger challenge, requiring us to give her multiple treats as she inches along it. Having TreatTeek clipped to our belt loop makes accessing treats during agility so much easier, helping us ensure SoomSoom is constantly getting the motivation she needs to overcome her fears.

Training Tricks

While basically all of the above items are part of “training” in some form, TreatTeek is also helpful when training tricks like sit, down, up, shake, heel, and more. If your pup is treat motivated, you’ll need to have treats easily accessible when training. TreatTeek not only provides that access, but it can also help cue to your dog that it’s training time. Once your pup associates TreatTeek with treats, they’ll be more attentive to you when you have it on hand. 

Posing for Photos

For the ‘gram! If you’re reading this blog post, we think it’s more likely than not that you post photos of your pets on social media. We also think it’s more likely than not that your pup doesn’t always cooperate when you want to take photos/videos to share on social media. Or maybe you just love taking photos of your pet for yourself (forget the ‘gram!) Whether you’re trying to get your pup to look at the camera, focus on you, or stop being a diva, TreatTeek makes getting your pup’s focus & attention easier - just dangle your TreatTeek or rely on that sweet velcro sound to help make photoshoots a breeze! Goodbye diva, hello Dogue (... dog vogue…. get it?)! 

AND MORE...

As we said earlier, you can use TreatTeek in many ways - these are just a few. We hope, if nothing else, we’ve inspired you to dispense treats to your furbabies more regularly :) 

What’s your favorite way to use TreatTeek? Let us know in the comments!