Maureen & Hudson, Papillon, 5 months, Bermuda

Welcome! Oh wow, how cool, I didn’t know you had a litter with them. And what a cool puppy it produced! 🙂 He seems really eager, motivated and has nice long legs!
He was indeed little champ for poking you that way. Tiny dogs often don’t like to get in personal space of a big human. So the fact that Hudson offers it so well is really nice. I would probably stay down when he does it and just verbally prise him and throw treats – getting up only once he is after that treat. I didn’t notice it would bother him plenty, but if a consequence of a poke is that a person becomes larger, it could be the opposite of what we are trying to achieve/reinforce. So do as I said – throw first, get up after when he is no longer that close OR just stay down and wait for him to come back for another poke. Or you can try to get even smaller as a consequence – sitting or even lying down eventually.
To encourage him being close and not having an issue with a personal space you can also add little platform to the food throwing game. Use a platform big enough for him to go on with all 4 comfortably and first place it at a distance he finds comfortable and shape that he gets on with all 4. Once he understands it, have him go up before each throw and eventually bring the platform at your feet when you are standing up. So he runs off in one direction, chasing the treat, comes back to the platform and runs off to chase another treat,…. It will also be good foundation for RC in the future. 😉

Hihi, he is a passionate little guy. 🙂 He definitely values the toy more than he values food in this context. Because of that, don’t reach for the toy as soon as he wins. Let him have a moment with it, so the original “hype” from winning calms down. When you see he is not so active with it anymore, try to approach him very passively and open up the pocket without pulling it towards you. You can use one hand to gently push him slightly out of the way so you can open it with the other and than point the food out to him. You can let him have a bite than take a couple more treats out of the toy and throw them across the room, so he gets some action with it as well. It also gives you time to close it and start a new chase with it when he is away to get a treat.

“I’m not sure if this is exactly what you meant with the food toy……but at least this time Hudson wasn’t quite so inclined to play “keep away.””
I am sorry. 🙂 Let me try again. 🙂 You did most of it right! Giving him some time to win and just sitting there and admire him for his glorious win. The only thing you still need to change is – try not to pull the toy away from him to reward him. Leave the toy where it is and instead rather try to either get a hold of his harness and keep him from the toy (just an inch or two) while you open it up where it is, or you put one hand on his chest and try to “push” him away (again just very slightly) so you can open the toy for him.
If he is not letting go even for a brief moment so you can’t really do any of the above, you can hold his harness and keep him from putting the head with the toy down on the ground. Just keep him straight up until he drops the toy. When he does you can switch between starting another chase immediately (as a reward for dropping) or holding him up while you open the pocket and send him to get food when you are done.

Restrain – for now I would try to hold his harness and tease him with a treat in your hand. Than throw it so he is leaning forward to follow it. Release as soon as he does that. So basically the food is not static, you just delay the release towards a thrown treat at first. And than gradually delay it more and more.

If he is showing avoidance when trying to grab him and if he progressively gets more annoyed with the session as time passes, I suggest you don’t really make it an exercise. Just do one repetition randomly somwhere throughout playing (you can do it with toy as well as with food) or before you let him out to the garden or whatever random situation you can think of. Just one repetition per day or not even that. Sometimes you can also just pet him and reward or hold his harness briefly and reward, just so he knows that not every time you reach for him you will attempt to restrain him.

Super cool! When he is on platform you can also be standing closer, so he is really right next to you. You can release him in random directions, also with a throw backwards, through your legs.
You can also work on placing the platform all around the room, so he has to go away from you to step on it or step on it on the way towards you – but you not being directly there. It is a good pre-exercise for running contacts and generally creating balance between having the dog close but also being able to send him far away. It is easy and fun so it can be part of the little puppy games.