Hi everyone! I hope you're all having a great day! Today I have a review for you on a really neat device! The Train 'N Praise is a remote triggered treat dispenser! Zoe was very excited by this thing! She thought it was a puzzle toy! It was so funny! We received our Train 'N Praise in exchange for an honest review.
PetSafe is a company that makes a variety of pet products. They have all sorts of things! We've used their gentle leaders, harnesses and puzzle toys! Zoe really likes their interactive toys.
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The first thing we did was break out the manual and read it!
The directions are simple and we figured it out really quickly!
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About the Train 'N Praise
The Train 'N Praise helps you teach your pet remotely. The handheld remote activates the treat dispenser from up to 25 feet away, so you can reward good behavior immediately. You can use it to keep your pet away from the door when a visitor arrives, to reward your pet for not barking, it can be used to add distance to your dog's training cues, you can use it to teach a long down stay, basically the sky is the limit!
You can put treats up to 1/2" in size in it. I've been using some small round training treats and also kibble. The treat dispenser can be mounted to a wall or free standing, has a low battery indicator, and is AC adapter compatible. The treat dispenser can be used to train both dogs and cats! How cool is that!?
Check out our video of the girls trying the Train 'N Praise!
The girls were a little wary of the treat dispenser at first. It beeps and vibrates and it is sort of loud. Zoe got over her fear of it a lot faster than Phoenix and she actually thought that it was some sort of weird puzzle toy. I think Phoenix's fear of it was more that she was worried about Zoe eating her for touching "Zoe's toy" than the noise it made. Once I put Zoe away and gave her a chance to try it on her own, Phoenix was fine.
My dogs have had a lot of different puzzle toys in the past and because of that, Zoe did try pawing at it a bit to see if that made the thing work. When
she wasn't rewarded for that behavior she stopped doing it. She quickly figured out that I was the one triggering the machine. You definitely have to 100% supervise with this treat machine. It isn't very secure and a determined dog could definitely knock it over and get the food out. My cat was able to get into it one night when I forgot to pick it up.
I've been using the Train 'N Praise to teach long down stays (especially during our dinner time, to stop the begging) and I've also been using it for counter conditioning my dogs to "apartment complex" noises. They've been reactive lately to the sound of other dogs, specifically tags jingling. It's been going really well! I've had a couple of times where the machine jammed and didn't spit the treats out, but I just shook it and that was all it needed.
The only thing I don't love about the machine is that I think it spits out too many treats. Emma's mom told me to set it for smaller treats and that did help! I also wish there was some different settings on it. The only way to trigger it is by pushing the button. It would be nice if I could tell it to dispense X amount of treats per X amount of seconds. I also wish it held more food and was a bit more secure. I'm sure if I mounted it that would solve the secure issue, but I'd like to be able to move it around so I'd rather not mount it. As long as my pets are supervised and I remember to put it away at night, things have been fine.
Overall, I really like having a remote treat dispenser. It's been very useful over the past few weeks and I am pretty happy with it! I don't always hit my mark when I toss treats, my aim is very poor so it's nice to have the treat machine right there. It's also been helpful for rewarding both dogs at the same time. The dog that's near me gets a cookie hand delivered to them and the other dog gets the button pressed. I'm going to try working with Phoenix and getting some distance with the treat machine next! I'll keep everyone updated on how that goes!
I would recommend checking the Train 'N Praise out! It could be the perfect addition to your training program! My dogs have had so much fun with it!
Sounds like a cool gadget!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great tool for teaching distance behaviors. I'm going a little wild but it even seems like something that could be used to help semi feral or very fearful dogs that have anxiety triggered by human contact. Very cool.
ReplyDeleteOh I have heard of this, it looks so cool!
ReplyDeleteღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
That was a GREAT video demonstration! Hopefully, they will update the product (I love your suggestions on how to improve it). I am not really sure what Blueberry would do with something like that. She'd probably be like Zoe - torn by wanting the treats but yet wary of the strange beeping thing spitting them out.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds really cool! All I can see is Nola figuring out how to open the thing and not waiting for it to spit them out, haha!
ReplyDeleteWe were worried about that, too but they have been really good about respecting it! Our stupid cat, though.. Sigh...
Deletewow, very good video! while it does look like a wonderful training tool for some, i'm sure bailey would be terrified by it. she is very skittish and pretty much afraid of her own shadow :(
ReplyDeleteA great review! We have something much like that, an earlier version. It works super well but we have run into one problem. R is obsessive-compulsive (he went through a bunch of tests to figure out why he drinks gallons of water if given the chance - and, yes, they concluded that he's crazy). Anyway, when the treat and train is out, he is utterly obsessed with it... to the point that he becomes possessive of it and might bite someone who comes between him and it. So, we've stopped using it with him.
ReplyDeleteAside from our crazy dog, we've loved ours too! It's worked superbly for all our other dogs.
I like the idea of this, but Sampson has gotten super sensitive about noise, specifically beeping and I really think this would toss him over the edge. Is there any way to turn the sound off?
ReplyDeleteYep! You can turn the beep off but it will still vibrate. I left the beep on so that it became like a marker.. Like using a clicker. Beep = treat.
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