Working on toy drive

So whether I keep Hank or not, the kind of people that will be adopting him if I don't will all value toy drive. He has a good base I think to work with.

As of right now we are just playing with no real goal other than have fun and end on a fun note. That is going very well and he engages really readily with me.

The biggest issue I can foresee is that he wants toys when he has them or they are thrown but he will not tug or bite if I have the toy. He just waits for a throw. I've gotten him to tug a couple times with a stuffie when he brings it back to me. He will fetch balls, stuffies, and fleece tugs but seems to prefer stuffies. So far he is not overly rough with toys, which surprises me.

What kind of stuff would you do with him?

Does he like to hold them in his mouth at all? What does he do if you hand them to him?

He'll hold them on his own but only after you throw it or he decides it's game time. He fetches like a pro and likes to prance and toss toys for himself. He won't really mouth very often if I am offering him the toy. He sits and waits for the throw.

He will run after every throw I've thrown so far. And he's running full tilt, very into the fetch game.

He also likes to wrestle but tug is something else.

Have you tried a flirt pole with him?

Maybe by intensifying the chase in a more unpredictable way, he'll be more likely to want to engage with the toy after the catch?

When he brings it back to you can you get him to put up any resistance if you take ahold of it while it's in his mouth? That's worked well with a few of my disc students who have a dog that isn't fond of tugging with the plastic. They love the chase and we would make it a game of if they hold onto it for a second while we pull on it another toy gets whipped out and thrown. And we built up from there.

I've also had good luck with the ACD's of the classes by racing them to the toy and if I get to it before them making a big deal that it's mine and not theirs. If they get to it first I would try and grab it and if they put up any resistance to that I throw a party and throw another toy for them to go retrieve. It's how I built Didgie's retrieve but it seems to be working well to teach a tug with some of the dogs in class!

I've also done kinda like Beret suggested exact by holding the toy in my hand and making it dance all along the floor trying to entice the dog to grab it from my hands and letting them win it immediately the first few times and then pulling back a bit when they grab it the next time around.

Working on a cue to "get it!" will probably help too!

And I know you probably know this but SHORT sessions!!

Have not tried flirt pole! I only have a pap sized one and Hank would destroy it in about a second flat. I'll have build one for him, I think he'd like it.

He had a great tugging session yesterday. I think he is getting the concept of it and it seems to be transferring to other objects like the fleece tug and not just the stuffed monkey. The only way I can get him to start is by grabbing it after he's fetched it though, he is still not biting well when I just offer him the toy.

He prefers food to toy, should I really make an effort to make all training come from toys? Or at least a lot of it? I have been using food for leave it and impulse control exercises.

I introduced him to a disc- just a cheap plastic one. He will chase it along the ground but not pick it up at the moment. Good disc ideas? I've been watching videos about introducing discs so we've started with rollers but I think I suck with them. He seems to definitely prefer tennis balls and then soft toys vs plastic. Should we start with a soft floppy disc? I am looking at Hero discs just now.

Yay! That's great!

What does he do if you move the toy before you've thrown it? Like moving it around the ground or in the air rather than just offering it to him? Most dogs that I've been getting used to a disc won't grab it if it's just offered but if I slap it around and move it around the ground they grab at it and then I do a bit of tugging and it works really well.

And remember, keep the tugging sessions short and keep the throw and retrieve a big part of it since he finds that majorly rewarding!

Also, I've had a few ACD/Terrier mixes go through my classes and the thing they've ALL had in common was that they liked to be pushed around while playing and if they weren't sure on tugging, pushing them away while moving the toy around and them not being able to just grab it made them fight for it SO much more. So that might be an idea for him!

Practice your rollers alone, that will help a ton. Also, one of the first things I teach is an around (lure him around your body and toss the food in front of you so he gets used to moving forward when he comes around your body) because it really helps them move in the right direction, they SEE the disc rolling away and they don't get hit in the head by you trying to throw.

I would probably use a floppy disc at first if you only have the cheap plastic discs because those can hurt the dog and be off putting to them (unless you're Feist) but if you're going to go with Hero then I saw do it and start getting him into it!

Remember, short SHORT sessions. Short little rollers and try some takes too, hold it out parallel to the ground and move it away from him trying to get him to take it from your hand. Play with it on the ground, move it around, make him chase it.

The ACD's I've worked with all seem to have this fight in them that makes them want it if you don't LET them get it. The last two were both dogs that loved the chase but didn't want to pick it up after that so we did a lot of short rollers and I would race them to them and if they didn't grab it off the floor I would take it and make a huge deal about getting it before them. Pushing them away from it and making myself look like an idiot. They both pretty much started fighting me to get to it.

So, just some ideas for you! Look up the disc thread on here too, has a lot of great advice!

That was my goal for Pilot - I really really wanted really really good toy play - but it just wasn't working. Play wasn't coming along fast enough for it to be an effective reward, which meant I wasn't getting to work on anything else really. Which wasn't a good use of my time, I still had to feed him anyway, and stressed me out that he wasn't learning everything he would ever need to know ever by 12 weeks, hahah.

So I keep play development and training separate. I don't want to put rules on play until he loves it, but he also has to be learning things. I think impulse control is always a good use of kibble and training time.

The one trouble spot I have had come up, now that he does like play enough that I can start using it as a reward, is when I mark with "yes" he clearly expects food and won't take a toy even though I think he would find play reinforcing. I don't really have a solution for it yet, hahaha, but it's something to be awar of.

Thanks so much! Very helpful and I'm going to go look up the disc thread.

Yeah he definitely likes wrestling but generally drops the toy when I start wrestling. I got my first Hank induced torn up arm yesterday. He is so mouthy...

He is actually very gentle about biting toys and doesn't seem as easily worked up by me moving the toy around. I do think a flirt pole will set him off, he's very motion triggered.

He still seems to prefer fetch to tug. He WILL chase rollers but will not pick them up yet.

Also, he is flopping over when he grabs a tug and I end up with him on his side or back. I call it the lazy dog tug. I could drag him around like that but is there a way to encourage him NOT to fall over when we're tugging?

He also gets toy ADD some... we'll play with a toy then he switches and grabs a stuffy then the ball, then another... His favorite toys so far are Mia's x-small squeaky balls. He's so gentle that I am playing with them with him for now but he really needs a bigger size.

That is a good idea. This dog has impulse control down already. He will twist and turn and CHASE after toys but he has it in his mind he must sit first. It sounds terrible but I'm trying to break him of that. I was using the toy to teach him sit and now he thinks that sits are what happens between throws.

Which is great for a pet dog... But I want him to feel like it's okay to go all out in play and he doesn't always have to sit and be good to get the toy thrown.

He gets super duper amped up for food and loses his manners there though.

This is what I did with Marsh, who keep in mind had a pretty strong history of retrieve to hand, shaping, IYC, and marker words by that point.

1. Shape a pull on an object I'm holding for kibble.
2. Then IYC it. "Commit to tugging over here, and I'll let you have the food from over here
3. Then introduce a new cue, Sprrring, which means "thanks for tugging, I'll throw it for you now."
4. Once I had the shaped pull, and was able to reward pulling with fetch, very quickly (within 3 repetitions) I had fake tugging.

About a year later, I had real tugging, playing tug because it was enjoyable not just as a trick to a different reward, about 25% of the time if I set up my training session just right. Two years later, today, I have real tugging about 50% of the time if I'm not careful about my setting factors and very close to always if I am.

Pilot did this some when he was younger and I've seen another young dog do it - I think it has to do with physical strength. You could try not playing so vigorously. With Pilot I saw it mainly on a flirt pole and I kinda dragged him around in a way that made him want to/be able to get his feet up from under him. Getting him to want to back up might help. I don't know that anything I did really helped; I think Pilot just grew out of it.

Flirt pole! When he catches it, you can tug with him on it a bit. This is a double trainer because impulse control can really be implemented as well. Banging tugs on the floor and making them move so they look like prey. Run with the tug dragging behind you. When he grabs lots of praise, turn around tug on it, smack him around a bit if he likes that.

I've not had much luck with racing dogs to toys, but that's just me. Could possibly work for you.

Two ball, even though most people use that for retrieves, I use it a lot for just toy build in general.

Just to hit those again.

Practice a lot of "get it" and "out". Wear gloves and kind of smack his face/neck/body sans toy, then bring the toy out and have him get it.

It's really late/early, so sorry if that's a bit jumbled. I've found these have worked best for herder puppy, so I'm assuming it will translate well since he has some drive already. I know I basically just repeated everyone else's suggestions, but yeah!

Fenzi class

You may really enjoy Denise Fenzi's play class. It just started last week. You can watch people play with their dogs and read Denise's incredibly detailed feedback. It really helped me.

Think, "what would a squirrel do?" Keep the pressure off. Don't tug by having dog pull backwards. What game does the dog want to play and how can you replicate that within your tug game? Keep it short!