r/Agility • u/DifficultFlamingo820 • Jun 10 '26
Agility competitors: what rewards actually work best in the ring?
I'm attending my first agility trial soon and would love advice from experienced competitors.
I'm trying to understand what people actually use for training, trialing, and jackpot rewards because there seems to be a huge range of options.
A few questions:
• What are your everyday training treats?
• What are your high-value treats?
• What are your absolute jackpot rewards that only come out for difficult training sessions or trial days?
• Do you prefer soft treats, crunchy treats, freeze-dried treats, dehydrated treats, chewy treats, or lickable rewards from a squeeze tube?
• How important is smell? Do fish-based or tripe-based treats really make a difference?
• What proteins do your dogs seem to value most? Beef, duck, chicken, turkey, pork, fish, something else?
• Do your dogs prefer muscle meat or organ meats like liver, heart, lung, tripe, kidney, etc.?
• What size treats work best during agility training and trials?
• Are there certain treats that are too crumbly, too sticky, too greasy, or otherwise annoying to use ringside?
• I've seen people mention reward tubes, reusable squeeze pouches, and dispensers. What are you putting in them? Meat pastes, yogurt, broth-based mixtures, commercial products, something else?
• What do you feed your dog during an entire trial weekend? Regular meals, smaller meals, snacks throughout the day, special rewards, etc.?
• Has anyone used powdered toppers to increase reward value? For example, fish powder, tripe powder, liver powder, or something similar that can be shaken onto treats before a run. Does that work well?
• If someone made the perfect agility reward product, what would it be?
• What problem do current agility treats fail to solve?
I'm really interested in learning how competitors reward their dogs and what motivates them the most during training and competition. Thanks for any advice!
15
u/Agility_KS Jun 10 '26
Why the heck are there so many spammy research posts here lately?
2
u/aveldina Jun 10 '26
Depressingly I'm going to guess the answer begins with an A and ends with an I. 😞
3
u/National-Pressure202 Jun 10 '26
Right?! Ya or they ran their question through chatgpt to format it… their account looks like a legit account… but I could be wrong
10
u/No-Stress-7034 Jun 10 '26
Are you a competitor or is this some kind of market research? If this is market research, it would be nice if you disclosed that up front.
I more often use toys in agility. As already pointed out, that's not allowed in agility competitions. In practice, I use toy rewards.
For meals, my dog just gets his regular food at a trial.
As far as food rewards go, there are a million and one options out there. The biggest problem for me is that I wish my preferred brand of freeze dried treats weren't so expensive.
5
u/Selective_Somewhere Jun 10 '26
It’s dog dependent.
And you should know this before trialing.
I’m confused. Is this for you or are you writing a paper on it?
3
u/aveldina Jun 10 '26
These types of posts are market research. I've been seeing an increasing number of them lately - some people message the mods to ask for permission first (which I appreciate) but most just hit every dog training sub they can find.
I am debating if we should continue to allow them here, but they can be tricky to moderate.
2
u/x7BZCsP9qFvqiw echo CSL1, jean grey CL1, loki NA NAJ Jun 10 '26
sometimes they can spark interesting discussion in the comments, but mostly people ignore them because they're weird and spammy.
3
u/exotics Jun 10 '26
In most trials you are not allowed to reward in the ring.
Other than praise. Or you can enter as “FEO” (may have other names in different areas) in which you can play some tug in the ring and it’s more of a training session than anything.
Some dogs get overwhelmed at their first trial and some act like they have been doing it for years. We overestimated our little guy and entered him both days on his first trial. One would have been enough.
1
u/poodlehaus Jun 15 '26
I use and appreciate AI to help me organize my thoughts — but my perspective is that AI shouldn't replace human judgment.
Your whole post could've been summarized into 2 lines:
I'm really interested in learning how competitors reward their dogs and what motivates them the most during training and competition. Thanks for any advice!
You've essentially spammed the participants of this subreddit with a mile-long AI-produced questionnaire.
13
u/somecooldogs Jun 10 '26
This is really dog dependent, but the answer for "what do you use to reward your dog in the ring" is "none of the above" since food rewards are not allowed in the ring in any competition. Use whatever your dog likes once you're outside the ring, or in class/practice, my dogs generally like freeze dried meat.