Finding the best dog treat with statistics

https://www.wespiser.com/posts/2026-06-19-best-dog-treat.html

by wespiser_2018 • 1 month ago

142 57 1 month ago

wespiser_20186• 1 month ago

Author here: I did a quick experiment with my Greyhound, Bebop, to figure out the treat he prefers best using pair-wise comparison analyzed with the Bradley-Terry model. Same tech as Elo scores in chess, and several other places! Enjoy!

zthrowaway• 30 days ago

Really weird question but what boots are you wearing in your blog photo? They look wide enough for my weird feet. Thanks

dice• 1 month ago

I missed the word "Treat" in the title initially and I was incensed. All dogs are the best dog TYVM.

buildsjets6• 1 month ago

The best dog treat is always the treat the OTHER dog is eating.

savethejoy• 30 days ago

Oh my goodness.

ses1984• 30 days ago

My one dog hates broccoli but she will choke it down just so the other one can’t have it.

weberer• 30 days ago

Or cat turds

buildsjets6• 30 days ago

Kitty roca confirmed. Our Husky was a goon for it. At least it forced us to keep the boxes clean several times a day.

NordStreamYacht2• 30 days ago

Good grief.

Why would you give your dog those as treats?

CM30• 1 month ago

This makes me wonder what the research is for whether certain types or breeds of dog prefer certain dog treats, and how individual dogs might develop a preference for one kind over another. Based on this experiment it doesn't seem like the type of meat matters much, since while the top ranked treat is chicken, his second favourite seems to be the duck one.

tracker1• 29 days ago

We have 4 smaller dogs (mix of chihuahua and terriers), and they all absolutely love the greenies over anything else. One of them now has a prescribed treat and he definitely isn't happy about it, and the others won't touch it.

Hardest part is now feeding them all separate dishes at regular times every day.

RataNova5• 29 days ago

I'd guess texture and(or) smell might matter as much as the actual meat

wespiser_20186• 29 days ago

It's pretty interesting, but Bebop is barely treat motivated, and mostly inside. Once you take him outside, especially in open areas, he becomes more interested in tracking movement and chasing things.

I believe it's explained by the job we've asked Greyhounds to do: see movement, get released, run after it. Once you let go, that's it, the dog needs to be motivated enough by the running animal or lure, and there's no chance to reinforce the loop once it starts!

lijok• 1 month ago

Bebop is clearly being paid off by Big Chicken to skew the results

shermantanktop2• 1 month ago

Big Chicken == Tyson, I believe, at least in the US.

Big Strawberry == Driscoll's, at least on the west coast. And those are some pretty undistinguished strawberries.

buildsjets6• 1 month ago

No, Big Chicken == Shaquille O'Neal in the US. His picture is right there on the official Big Chicken Dot Com website and everything.

https://www.bigchicken.com/about

thih9• 1 month ago

My dog told me to write that the set of treats is missing non bleached rawhide, other dehydrated meats (eg rabbit, goat, fish), animal parts (eg ears), and vegetables. Also, he volunteers.

buildsjets6• 1 month ago

My Husky used to CRAVE little dehydrated minnows. Extra crunchy.

pnw• 1 month ago

Beautiful hound!

doglover737484• 1 month ago

Add some interesting smells and dogs will eat absolutely anything.

Used tampons, literal shit, soiled underwear, dierhia, dead bird, freshly killed cat, they owners... It is basically a pig with collar that lives in your house.

dgacmu• 1 month ago

And so useful when you don't feel like scraping the dishes. ;-)

ngai_aku• 1 month ago

* varies by breed

I've seen many a lab eat their own shit, but my standard poodle takes his time investigating even a piece of steak before he decides whether it's worth eating.

srean2• 29 days ago

Varies by personality too.

embedding-shape• 30 days ago

It'd be hard to sleep with a pig in the bed with us though, but point taken. Now I kind of wanna get a pig-buddy for our dog.

srean2• 29 days ago

Like these siblings ?

https://youtu.be/nMNLrQW7_pU

efilife• 28 days ago

I think you are a bit biased

dieselgate• 1 month ago

Our Malinois really liked the dehydrated chicken too, currently finishing a bag of the Trader Joes organic chicken jerky sticks. Interesting idea for some experiments, thanks for sharing

FrankenDino• 1 month ago

You should really try Growlers dog bones.

https://growlersdogbones.org/

pike00• 1 month ago

Interesting read! I might replicate with my two whippets. What’s their inter-rater reliability?

You also should continue with a swap of the hands; randomize which one is in the left and record the results to see if the left bias is real

jnellis2• 1 month ago

My dog's favorite treat is the most expensive one. Or the one that causes the most intestinal (and therefore cleanup) issues. All it takes is a pause and some brief math to see that a lot of (good for your dog) dog treats are $16/lb. That's not even remotely the most expensive. It's cheaper to feed them straight meat. I've resorted to making my own treats. It's like $4/lb, plus you know exactly what goes into it (mostly ground turkey, yams, rice/chickpea flour).

scrtm• 30 days ago

care to share the recipe?

jnellis2• 30 days ago

https://pdfhost.io/v/BQBcuLsPCK_dogtreats

kadoban• 27 days ago

Not OP but one thing you can do is boil or lightly-pan-fry (don't use any spices, or at least check that they're dog-safe, _do not_ use garlic) chicken thigh or chicken breast, cut it into small cubes and freeze it in sandwhich bags.

Dogs love it because it's just little meat cubes. Thaw it before you give them.

You can do the same thing with hotdogs.

gwern• 1 month ago

One thing I'm not following is how the side/order bias is being handled. OP measures a IMO very large bias towards left-hand treats, but it is unclear how that is handled (ahem)? Skimming https://github.com/adamwespiser/best-dog-treat/blame/main/an... doesn't help me understand if it is being modeled as a covariate to adjust for the bias or if it was dealt with by construction (eg. by always offering pairs twice, swapping hands), or what?

Incidentally OP if you want to make it more adaptive, you can just fit the B-T model each time, and grab a posterior sample of what the best pair is, and test that, which turns out to be Thompson sampling. I did this for fun with blind taste-testing of mineral waters: https://gwern.net/water

wespiser_20186• 1 month ago

That's awesome! Thank you!

markerz• 30 days ago

I suspect it’s by construction, looks like they’re offering every permutation of treat choice twice.

Below, I filtered for A vs E, the top two choices. Notice how they switch left and right hand each time:

A/E :: A

E/A :: A

A/E :: E

E/A :: E

A/E :: E

wespiser_20186• 29 days ago

Author here, yes, that's correct.

The initial set-up was to do 3 comparisons of the 5 treats (30 trials), alternate between right and left hand, then write a quick python script to randomize the order.

A bit more than halfway through the experiment, I ran the model and realized that A/D/E were the only contenders left, so I removed the B/C trials and added more A/D/E trials.

nosioptar2• 29 days ago

Some dogs have a strong preference on right/left. I've known at least six dogs that will only shake hands with their left paw.

kokanee• 29 days ago

Yes, and also the presence of a window fan on that side is a big deal because the selection is based on scent. In my experience dogs appear to "like" a scent based on how strong it is, not necessarily how it is "flavored" (for examples, dogs can behave as if they love the smell of poop or skunk spray, but it's actually the powerful sensory information that they're reacting to, not a culinary desire). It seems possible to me that the dog is choosing whichever scent is more powerful.

RataNova5• 29 days ago

Yep, I have seen dogs that clearly have "a side" for certain habits, even if it is not obvious whether it is paw preference, training, comfort...

RataNova5• 29 days ago

I liked that the post surfaced the bias instead of quietly ignoring it

zerobees• 30 days ago

In my experience, it's usually a partly-rotten deer leg found in the bushes on a nature walk.

wespiser_20186• 29 days ago

With Bebop, it's dead birds! He also finds them, then checks the same spot for months afterwords!

abofh• 30 days ago

This just feels like an excuse to give your dog a statically significant amount of treats

RataNova5• 29 days ago

Bebop: "I don't fully understand the model but I support increasing the sample size"

democracy• 30 days ago

nothing beats diy dehydrated turkey mince stripes... but pita to make them )))

RataNova5• 29 days ago

Even in a simple setup with one dog and five treats, the measurement process can still sneak into the result

rkagerer• 29 days ago

The same time every day, around 11pm, I go to the kitchen, select two different treats, say the word “choice”, and present the treats in either hand, allowing Bebop to only take one... By the time the experiment started, Bebop was used to the routine and sniffing both treats before taking one.

Winner was Pur Luv Chicken, closely followed by MON2SUN duck + rawhide. Greenies and Pork Chomps fared poorly.

andrew_eu• 29 days ago

I love it. For years with my old dog I would give him a binary choice between two treats and intuitively got a sense of his favorites as well. More satisfying to me was giving him the choice, which (maybe I'm over personifying him) I think he liked to pick his favorite. He had stomach issues which limited him to really only a few types of treats, and it was obvious which were his favorites, but it was fun anyway. I miss that dog.

metalman• 29 days ago

I can sell a dog anything. It helps that I speak fluent dog and most of the dialects, except yap, and bark³ bark³ bark³ bark³ bark³. It also helps that I truely love dogs and they love me, or at least are very attentive of and curious about, and possibly get completly wound up and loose there fluffy minds around, but I live with a horse. Anyway, dogs and things they can, shall we say, interact with oraly, just to be safe, which includes tiny little unidentifiable things they very delicatly nibble with just there front teath, and entire car interiors and hotel rooms, reduced to a even mulch, some of which makes it all the way through there digestive track, these I bring up as they are spontainious choices, free from any possibility of testing bias. But all in all, of my many observations, good meat tended carefully on a charcoal barbeque is paws down going to win 100/100, but they also like chicken poop, hoof trimmings, and afterbirth, which is a far from complete list. Then, we can get into the things dogs luxurate in rolling themselves in if you realy want to make them happy.

doublerabbit• 28 days ago

Now do it without nestle products.

Finding the best dog treat with statistics

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