This is a specific conversation about Dog training treats — high value, small size — ask about yours and get one honest answer for your exact situation.
inparticular.ai
A vomiting episode after high-volume training is a real problem — most likely the treats were too rich, too fatty, or your dog simply ate too many in one session without the stomach handling it well. The fix isn't to use fewer treats; it's to find something that's easy to digest at high volume. The best training treats are pea-sized, smelly, high in protein, and gone in one bite — but for a dog with a sensitive reaction history, the ingredient list matters just as much as the smell. Tell me: how big is your Ridgeback now, what are you training for, and what were the treats that caused the problem?
He's about 38kg, we're working on recall and loose lead — both need a lot of repetitions. The treats were those soft chicken cubes, I think they had glycerol and a bunch of additives in them.
inparticular.ai
That makes complete sense. Glycerol-based soft treats are notorious for causing gastric upset at volume — glycerol is essentially a sugar alcohol, and dogs don't process it well when they're eating 50+ pieces in a session. It ferments in the gut. At 38kg working on recall and loose lead, you need something you can use repeatedly without worrying about what's accumulating. What's his normal diet, and is there any protein he's known to react to?
He's on a dry kibble, Acana Regionals. No known allergies, he's just never been tested properly. The chicken treats were the first time we had an issue.
inparticular.ai
Good — Acana is a solid baseline so his digestion is used to quality protein. The chicken itself probably wasn't the issue; it was the additives and the sheer volume of soft, glycerol-laden treats hitting an empty-ish stomach mid-session. I'd move him onto Forthglade Natural Bites for Dogs. They're single-ingredient meat treats — just meat, nothing else — available in chicken, turkey, and lamb. They're soft enough to be palatable and eaten fast, but they don't contain glycerol, sugar alcohols, or fillers. At his size doing recall and loose lead work, you can use them freely without worrying about stomach load. Cut them to pea-size yourself if the pieces are slightly large — at 38kg he doesn't need much per reward, and keeping them tiny means you can do long sessions without any cumulative gut stress.
That sounds good. Will they be smelly enough to compete with distractions outdoors? Recall especially is hard near other dogs.
inparticular.ai
The lamb variant in particular has a strong scent — strong enough for outdoor recall work near other dogs. If you find he needs something even more aromatic in high-distraction environments, you can occasionally use a small piece of plain cooked liver alongside the Forthglade, but most owners find the lamb bites sufficient. The key with recall near other dogs is also consistency: use the treat exclusively for recall so it stays high-value. Don't use it for sits or general training — keep it special.
Makes sense. I'll go with the lamb. How many is too many in one session?
inparticular.ai
For a 38kg dog on single-ingredient meat treats, you have a lot of headroom — far more than with those glycerol treats. A 30-45 minute session using pea-sized pieces is very unlikely to cause any issue. As a rough guide, keep treats to under 10% of his daily calorie intake on heavy training days, and trim his kibble portion slightly that evening. With Forthglade Natural Bites you're not going to hit the same wall you did before — there's nothing in there that ferments or compounds. You should be fine.
