Reddit reviews KONG – Squeakair Ball mit Seil – Premium-Hundespielzeug, Quietschende Tennisbälle, Zahnschonend – Für Mittelgroße Hunde

You can (and definitely should) wean them off food rewards, but you can never stop rewarding behaviors altogether or they will go extinct. The best thing is to teach the dog to value some type of non-food object as a reward, generally a tug but a lot of folks use a tennis ball on a string type toy.

Some dogs are naturally more play-motivated than they are food-motivated, others have to be trained to enjoy playing as a reward.

EDIT: Reward schedules are important too. During the time when the dog is first learning a new behavior it should be rewarded 100% of the times that it does the behavior. Once the dog has learned the behavior well you can start rewarding every other, then every third, etc. It's important not to get stuck on rewarding every other for too long or else you'll get one half-assed attempt since the dog knows it won't get a reward until the next attempt. Same if you get stuck rewarding every third too long, you'll get two half-assed attempts and one strong one. A randomly varying reward schedule is best to keep the behavior strong.

I love my poochy!!!

Thanks for the man's best friend contest!!! =D

I have this dog toy on my Pets wishlist :)

Thanks for the contest!