Does anyone train using treats or toys?

We use both.  Effectiveness of each method is dependent on what motivates the dog and the trainers skill level. 

I use treats.  Sally is very food motivated, and while I have tried to use toys, she looks at me like I'm stupid when I have tried to use them as rewards.  I do use commands WHILE she and I play, but I don't do "practice sessions" with them."  I think it depends on the dog....

I use praise and treats. Rory gets tired of treats very quickly but I found that she really enjoys the freeze dried liver treats. I alternate treats with praise because I dont want her to think that she gets a treat EVERYTIME she does what she is supposed to plus it gives her more incentive because she dont when she gets them!

I use everything I can to motivate my dog and make training fun and effective.  Praise, toys, treats, toys with treats in them, a game of chase, petting, good scratch, tunnels, letting the dog do what he wants, etc.  If I find something that motivates me dog tomorrow that I didn't list here, I'll use that too.  Don't limit yourself.

We use treats and praise.  Lana is a treat junkie so when teaching her new tricks, we always use treats. 

I use a tennis ball with my male shepherd.

Whatever works to motivate Wes is what we use too - used to be only treats...  as the bond grows praise is more important to him, so we are using that too (we try to mix it up, so he never knows what he might get and when).  Lately, he is ball motivated - so fetch is used as a reward along with the other stuff...  I would be thrilled if he could be motivated by other things - we just haven't found them yet...

I use both as well. Actually I will use anything that I know Dasher likes...which is usually his ball, treats, or his tugging toy. Whatever keeps him motivated []

I use treats to teach the commands, and to reinforce them some, too. But I think that you shouldn't always rely on treats once the dog knows the command and you can get them to do it without treats. With my 3 year old, when I am doing training with her ( we are working on advanced things, and she knows everything pretty well) I don't use treats. I just use my voice for praise. That being said, she is not very food motivated, so this works. But, when I am getting her to do her tricks ( crawl, shake, jump, catch, roll over, which one, etc) I do  use treats, because in my opinion, this is something I do with her for fun, and not really an obedience thing that she has to do for me. She gets treats as rewards for her tricks, to keep her happy and excited when doing those.

I've been using treats for training with my 6 month old puppy Mirelle, and she is really food motivated. This is one of the things I do to keep her attention on me, so that I can teach her something,  or work on commands. I am trying to use less treats with her though; still to have them, but just to use them less often. So that she doesn't rely on always getting a treat when she performs a command correctly, but every so often to keep her motivated. I'm trying to use my voice as the main thing, but with her, the treats certianly do help. Mirelle is going to be trained as a service dog eventually ( not for me, I'm raising  for a program and they train her and place her with someone handicapped), so she will, of course, need to learn to obey without using treats as a bribe.

I haven't tried using a toy to traing with Mirelle; though I don't see why you couldn't! Cassidy's toys are only ones that she can play fetch with; she gets very excited when I bring out her ball, frisbee, etc. I have tried using a toy with her training, but she gets so excited that she will not really listen to me, but just wants me to throw it. Like if I am heeling with her, and have the toy in my hand, she won't walk right next to me, but swings out so that she can see me better....the same with the automatic sit;  she swings outward and kind of trembles waiting for me to throw the ball for her. So this isn't really a good option for her, I don't think. However, I have noticed that she does a very quick down ( from a sit, usually) if I have her toy, and  keeps her attention totally on me. This is also a good opportuntity to have her stay, so that she learns self-control! ( She does stay, but you can see her just desperatley wanting to get to it []).

Sorry for the long post.

the more reinforcers you have, the more motivated your dog will be. Offer a variety of rewards at random. Think of it this way: you feed a dollar in a machine, and a piece of chocolate comes out. Every time you feed a dollar in there, a piece of chocolate comes out. How long do you think you'll stand there working that machine? kind of boring. Plus even real chocolate lovers do get tired of it temporarily. But what if the machine sometimes spits out chocolate, sometimes spits out chips, sometimes spits out toys, sometimes plays music, and sometimes gives you nothing? Much more fun and exciting to work that machine, you never know what's going to happen.
You'll also get much more reliable behaviors if you stop rewarding every time the dog obeys. Once the dog clearly knows "sit", you should switch to rewarding only one out of five, then one out of ten, then one out of a hundred sits. If for months at a time you gave the dog a treat every time he sat, and then one day you didn't happen to have any treats on you, and ask for a few sits, he's probably going to quit working for you pretty quickly. But if he's used to only getting a treat now and again, he'll keep working hoping each time that THIS is the time he'll get a treat. You can also use this to help improve a behavior, by rewarding only the better performances-- if your dog is a bit slow on the down, offer a reward only for the faster downs, and pretty soon his average down speed will increase, and then you continue to offer a reward only for the faster downs, and soon you'll have, on average, a very fast down.

I use anything that motivates the dog.  Treats, toys, rabbit pelt, praise, game of tug, catch a ball, go for a ride, get out the door, get Frosty Paws, sniff the kitty, etc.
 

I use treats. Natalie is very food motivated but not very toy motivated.

I use treats most of the time.  I use games of fetch when training in the park, mainly because i don't want other dogs coming over looking for treats[] which has happened before.   I have never had a dog that wasn't food motivated.
 
Spiritdogs, i've never heard of a dog motivated by kitty sniffing[]

I have used toys on occassions. Max loves tug toys, and when he gets really excited, he will start grabbing his leash and using it as a tug, so when he did that, I used a tug toy as a reward, and dropped his leash so that he wouldn't have something to tug until I let him have the toy. Another time he was really in to a tennis ball, something he usually doesn't care about, so we used it. That lasted about 10 minutes before he went back to not caring about it, and I went back to using treats. I also taught him out of sight stays with a tug toy. I would leave him in a stay in a room, and go to get his tug. If he broke the stay while I was getting the toy, I would put his tug away, and put him back in a stay. Since he wanted it so bad, it didn't take him too long to realize that staying got the toy to him the quickest.
My old dog went to training with a dog who loved toys more than anything else, and didn't care too much about treats. They always brought the dog's favorite toy to training, and they never bothered to bring treats.
If your dog (or animal, or student) will work for it, and you can control access to it, then you should take advantage of it.