Toys!
The biggest thing I've been working on with Indie lately is building toy drive. I haven't taught anything knew in at least two weeks, but I've been doing a lot to further establish existing behaviors like Sit, Down, and Wait.
For the toy drive sessions, we go out behind the house and play with a short tug toy. I'm trying to keep it low pressure so that we're just having a good time playing together. I'm trying to make the training like Sesame Street: fun, and just let the learning part sneak in around the sides. He's getting very intense about the toy, which is terrific. I throw in *occasional* Sits, Downs, or Speaks before I let him have the toy, but I'm not overfocusing on that yet because I still want to establish that toy as the coolest thing ever in the whole wide world.
We're also doing Fetch with the toy, which he adores. He doesn't always bring the toy all the way back, so I'm making big huge fuss when he returns to me with toy. I realize that hundreds of thousands of dogs around the world figure out the fetch game for themselves, but I'm not willing to sit around and wait to see if it happens. Today he brought the toy all the way back to my hand all but twice. Those two times he dropped it just before making it back to me. I popped it back into his mouth before taking it again and treating/making huge fuss. This has been getting progressively better every time, as he had previously been dropping it 2/3 of the way back on many occasions.
Diane thinks the toy drive work is funny. She teases me that I'm trying to make him into a little Border Collie. We know, of course, that German Shepherds also work well with strong toy drive, but it's a fun joke anyway.
Indie also loves playing tug with his leash (this is allowed only when *invited*, mind you). It's great to have a ready made toy whenever we need a distraction.
For the toy drive sessions, we go out behind the house and play with a short tug toy. I'm trying to keep it low pressure so that we're just having a good time playing together. I'm trying to make the training like Sesame Street: fun, and just let the learning part sneak in around the sides. He's getting very intense about the toy, which is terrific. I throw in *occasional* Sits, Downs, or Speaks before I let him have the toy, but I'm not overfocusing on that yet because I still want to establish that toy as the coolest thing ever in the whole wide world.
We're also doing Fetch with the toy, which he adores. He doesn't always bring the toy all the way back, so I'm making big huge fuss when he returns to me with toy. I realize that hundreds of thousands of dogs around the world figure out the fetch game for themselves, but I'm not willing to sit around and wait to see if it happens. Today he brought the toy all the way back to my hand all but twice. Those two times he dropped it just before making it back to me. I popped it back into his mouth before taking it again and treating/making huge fuss. This has been getting progressively better every time, as he had previously been dropping it 2/3 of the way back on many occasions.
Diane thinks the toy drive work is funny. She teases me that I'm trying to make him into a little Border Collie. We know, of course, that German Shepherds also work well with strong toy drive, but it's a fun joke anyway.
Indie also loves playing tug with his leash (this is allowed only when *invited*, mind you). It's great to have a ready made toy whenever we need a distraction.
posted by Erica at
8:25 AM
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