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!
