Related: Best Training Treats for Puppies That Actually Get Used
I run a puppy kindergarten out of a church basement in Denver, and the program graduates more than 30 puppies a month. In seven years of training dogs, four of them spent running that class, I have watched owners spend real money on puppy training gear that never leaves the closet. I have also watched a plain plastic clicker do more for a dog than an entire shelf of gadgets.
Here is the honest frame for this guide. The tool is 10 percent of training. The other 90 percent is timing, consistency, and an owner who actually practices between sessions. So a good puppy training gear list is short: something to mark the behavior, something to pay for it, and something to attach the leash to. That is it. Everything else is marketing.
I judge gear the way my class does, inside an 8-week structured program with real puppies, real distracted sidewalks, and real owners who forget to practice. What follows is the short list that survives week 6, the week your puppy turns into a teenager and every shortcut falls apart.
Best Overall: ABSONE Dog Clicker for Training with Wrist Strap
A clicker is the single best purchase in dog training, and almost nobody uses it past day three. That is not because clickers do not work. It is because most clickers are sold without instructions, and an unmarked clicker is just a noise.
The wrist strap is the part that matters. By the time you are holding a leash in one hand, a treat pouch on your hip, and a wiggling puppy at your feet, a clicker in your pocket may as well be in another room. This one stays on your wrist, so the marker is always in the hand that needs it.
Here is how to use it, since nobody tells you:
- Charge the clicker. Click, then treat. Click, then treat. Ten repetitions. Your puppy does not have to do anything yet. You are teaching him that the sound predicts food.
- Capture a behavior. Wait for your puppy to sit on his own, and click the instant his rear touches the floor. Not when he is halfway down. Not when he looks up at you. The instant.
- Pay immediately. Treat within a second or two of the click. The click marks the exact moment. The treat pays for it.
- One behavior at a time. Sit, then name, then down. Do not stack criteria and wonder why the puppy looks confused.
- Fade the click later. The clicker is scaffolding. Once the behavior is reliable on a verbal cue, you wean off the marker the same way you fade treats.
The mistake I see in class is people clicking to get attention, or clicking after the treat, or clicking when the puppy is already walking away. The click ends the behavior. It does not start one. If you remember nothing else, remember that the mark lands inside the behavior, not after it.
Best Everyday Reward: Greenies Petite Natural Dental Dog Treats
Treats are not bribes. They are payment. The problem was never that people use treats, it is that people never fade them out and then wonder why the dog only listens when food is visible.
That said, not every treat belongs in a training session. The Petite size in this 60 count bag suits small puppies, and the original flavor is the boring one, which is exactly what you want. Save the exciting flavors for the jackpot moments.
Use these as a low-rate reward and as a dental chew, not as your high-rate training treat. The math is simple. A training session can involve 30 to 50 rewards in five minutes. If every reward is a whole dental chew, you have blown the day's calorie budget before the second exercise. Break each one into pieces and use the pieces as payment for the reps that actually went well.
Where these earn their spot in my class bag:
- End of session. Last rep gets something bigger than the clicker treats.
- Crate time. A chew in the crate teaches a puppy that the crate is the best room in the house.
- Settle practice. Something to chew is the fastest way to teach a puppy to be bored in public.
- Supervised downtime. You cannot train for 16 hours a day, and a puppy with nothing to do invents its own games.
Two things to remember. First, dental treats do not replace brushing, and no chew does. Second, count them. If your puppy is getting a chew, that is part of his food for the day, not a bonus on top of it. The puppies that show up to week 6 overweight are the ones whose owners never did the math.
Best No-Pull Option: ComfortFlex No-Choke Non-Chafe Sport Dog Harness, Petite
A puppy's neck is still developing. Attaching a leash to a collar and then letting a 20-pound puppy lunge at a squirrel is not a training problem, it is a structural one. The harness is the right call for leash work, and this one is designed so the pressure lands across the chest instead of the throat.
The name says no-choke and non-chafe, and those are the two things I check on any harness that comes into my class. Choking happens when a harness rides up and tightens across the windpipe. Chafing happens under the front legs, and it shows up around week three, after you have already thrown away the packaging. Check your puppy's armpits after every walk for the first two weeks. If the skin is pink and irritated, the fit is wrong, not the puppy.
Fit rules I give every owner:
- Snug enough that the harness cannot slide off over the shoulders when your puppy backs up.
- Loose enough that the shoulders move freely and you can see full range of motion in the front legs.
- Two fingers is a rough guide, not a rule. Watch the dog move, and adjust.
- Recheck the fit weekly. Puppies grow in bursts, and a harness that fit on Monday can be tight by Friday.
The Petite size fits small-breed puppies. Buy for the puppy you have right now, not the adult dog you are imagining, because a puppy will outgrow gear faster than you expect. That is not a reason to skip a harness. It is a reason to buy one that fits today and does its job today.
The same harness in Red
I am not going to pretend these are two different harnesses. They are the same harness in Kelly Green and Red, and the color is the entire decision. Here is how I would choose.
Kelly Green is for the puppy you walk in a park with tall grass and low light, or the one your partner also handles. It is easy to spot, and easy to grab when the puppy is dancing at the front door. Red is for the harness that lives in the car, or the second harness for the second handler, or the puppy whose coat is light enough that red reads clearly against it.
If you only buy one, buy the color you can see. A harness you cannot find is a harness you will not use, and a harness you will not use is the reason your puppy is still dragging you down the block in week 8.
The puppy training gear reference table
This is the short list, and the way I think about each item. Nothing here replaces practice. Everything here makes practice easier.
| Item | What it does | When to use it | Watch out for | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Visit on Amazon →ABSONE Dog Clicker for Training |
Marks the exact moment your puppy does the right thing | Every session, from day one | Charge it first. The click ends the behavior, it does not start one | $4.99 |
 Visit on Amazon →Greenies Petite Natural Dental Dog Treats |
Low-rate reward, crate reward, dental chew | End of session, crate time, settle practice | Break into pieces and count it against the day's food | $36.97 |
 Visit on Amazon →ComfortFlex Sport Dog Harness, Petite, Kelly Green |
Takes leash pressure off a developing neck | Leash work, class, vet visits, busy sidewalks | Check the armpits weekly. Puppies outgrow gear fast | $44.00 |
 Visit on Amazon →ComfortFlex Sport Dog Harness, Petite, Red |
Same harness, second color | Car harness, backup, second handler | Same fit rules as the green one | $44.00 |
How I decide what goes in the class bag
Every product gets the same four questions before it earns a spot in my kit.
Does it rely on pain or fear? If yes, it is out, for any age of dog. There is no version of a shock or vibration collar marketed to puppies that I will put my name on.
Can a first-time owner use it correctly without a class? A tool that only works in expert hands is a tool that fails in a living room. The clicker passes this test because the instructions are three sentences long. The harness passes because it goes on one way.
Does it survive week 6? Week 6 is when the puppy's brain falls out and every owner calls me convinced their dog forgot everything. Gear that falls apart at week 6 was never gear, it was a phase.
Would I use it in my own class? That is the last filter, and it eliminates most of the market.
What I skip, and why
Pee pads, if your goal is outdoor potty training. They teach a puppy that going inside is correct, and then you spend month two untraining it.
Treats the size of golf balls. You will run out of calorie budget in one session and your puppy will learn to work slowly, because each reward takes a full minute to chew.
Any collar marketed for pulling. If a device tightens around a throat to stop a behavior, it is teaching the puppy that walking near you hurts.
Clickers sold without instructions. Which is why I wrote the instructions above.
Should you buy the ABSONE Dog Clicker for Training?
Yes, if you will actually learn to use it. Charge it, mark the exact moment, pay within a second. The wrist strap keeps it in your hand instead of a drawer, and that is the whole reason this one made the list.
Most clickers die by day three. This one survives because it is always attached to the hand holding the leash. For the smallest purchase in this guide, it does the most work.
Should you buy Greenies Petite Natural Dental Dog Treats?
Yes, with one adjustment. Buy them as a low-rate reward and a chew, not as your main training treat. Break each one into pieces for sessions, use the whole thing for crate time and settle practice, and count every chew against the day's food.
The 60 count bag lasts, the Petite size suits small puppies, and the original flavor keeps things boring, which is what training food should be.
Should you buy the ComfortFlex No-Choke Non-Chafe Sport Dog Harness?
Yes, if you have a small-breed puppy who pulls. The harness moves pressure off a neck that is still developing, and it is built to avoid the underarm rub that cheap harnesses develop by week three.
Buy for the puppy in front of you, check the fit every week, and pick the color you will actually find when it matters. Kelly Green or Red, it is the same harness. The puppy on the other end of the leash is the part that decides whether it works, and that part is on you.
Practice between sessions. That is the 90 percent nobody sells.