Hi Polona! We just got back from our road trip. It was super fun, Sally had a blast. We didn’t do that much training, but I’ve attached a few random videos of playing so you can see her natural style of playing fetch. Basically she will chase and sometimes bring it back but not super eager to drop the object for another round.

I would say that Sally definitely likes movement but not all types of chasing, for example, she’s not superrr ball crazy. She definitely likes it when the toy moves on the ground like prey, as she has a high prey drive. I think she also likes rough housing too but she gets overstimulated really fast and she’s mouthy. I don’t mind it to a certain extent but it can kind of get a bit frantic and with more teeth than I’d like, haha. How do you recommend I deal with that? Especially because I don’t want to shut down her engaging with me. For example, if I touch her during touching she will sometimes redirect onto my arm.

• This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by Vivian Tran.

What do you typically do for an “engagement game”? We have a “ready to work” routine that I do prior to training, which basically assesses if Sally can eat treats, listen to my location specific markers cues, and perform simple behaviors, all with low latency. That works really well for us but it is not super exciting and high energy.

I tried the food games again in my yard with more running! I think Sally finds the chasing after me more rewarding than the food, haha. I used bigger treats but they are brown colored like the ground …. Maybe this game will work better when the grass is green again? The yard is really nice, lots of space but also so many smells and distractions, haha. We do a bit of training out here but the area is more of a causal “free time” environment for the most part, so maybe that’s why it can be hard to do training activities here. I also did the food games in my driveway (concrete) and even though there are more distractions there and we don’t spend much time there, Sally seemed more into the game. I played the game on a whim so I don’t have video unfortunately.

Do you think I should go back inside to play the food games? I can also try them only on concrete too. The last few times we have played them on grass Sally doesn’t seem super excited about it.

I tried the food games outside today but I think the environment was too hard! We went into the front yard where we have trained just a few times because my husband was busy in the back yard work yard with and we didn’t want to get in his way. I’ll try again another time in the backyard, hopefully I’ll get more engagement there.

https://youtu.be/1bkRw6ReEVw?feature=shared

Great! I can do that and will try again today. For Sally, would you recommend trying to play this game at all when she is in a lower energy mood? Ideally I would like to be able to “turn her on” on cue, because she is kind of an easy going girl and during a training session it can take her some time to get into it, haha.

Also, what do you do to conclude the game? is it okay to leave her anticipating (and maybe frustrated)? I normally end my training sessions either sending her to her bed and giving her a treat scatter, or if we are outside I will toss a treat and say “free” (her release cue for do whatever you want now).

Here are a few videos to start off 🙂

Baseline play – tug. We are tugging with a brand new toy (fox fur in holee roller). This is very high value and we are indoors as well, so probably one of the least distracting environments (though I have cats and they can be very distracting for Sally!). I think she is also anticipating my husband coming home too and keeps looking at the door. I think we could definitely improve but in general Sally doesn’t have many of the undesirable habits that other dogs have, like chewing the toy, running off with it, not wanting to give it back. For this toy since it was new and with the real animal hair she was definitely tempted to chew at it so I did stop her but I don’t think she held it against me, haha. I would like her to be more pushy and have more commitment to the tugging. She is clearly a big girl but she doesn’t pull very hard. I think she gets tired easily too. I think we probably played too long here.

https://youtu.be/3LPMH9CH3DQ?si=tfzABbYolbMoQmBw

Here is another video I just found as well that I submitted for another class – tug at agility. https://youtu.be/YwxKJfL-Fmw

She seems more committed to the tug here – maybe the harder environment made her more aroused.

And finally here is our first try at at the Poke It game! https://youtu.be/X9ccySalKZ0

This was really fun! I think I might have done it a little differently, I had only read the instructions once and decided to try it randomly today. I probably activated the treat hand more than I should have, but I tried to make it easy for Sally because she has low food motivation and a long history of sitting/lying down for food. So I tried to reward for anything active towards the hand. Next time I will try to do less work and see what she offers me! It would make me so happy to get her more pushy for food!!! I feel like I crushed that side of her when she was a puppy… but now I know that drive and desire is so valuable!