Elizabeth Graham Ebony Shetland Sheepdog 7 months England

Overall she was really playful throughout the session! Her energy was always really high and in this session she fully enjoyed chasing and her alone time with the toy. 🙂 In tugging she was mostly resilient and held on well, but she was never actively tugging so this is something we need to focus on. If she feels more involved when tugging it will increase her self-esteem and very likely also her willingness to retrieve the toy. Right now the act of tugging itself is not very rewarding – she feels far better once she actually wins the toy and therefore doesn’t want to “cut” this part of the game short. If we can make her feel like she can dominate the tugging part, she will probably want to come back over and over again to show you she is the boss. 😉
So what to do – given that she is fairly small, you will have to find the right amount of tension – it is absolutely necessary that there is always some tension in the toy, it should never become soft. However, you have to slow down your movement so she is not just being “dragged” around on the toy but actually has a chance to lean back, pull or shake the toy. You can keep her behind your back but move forward much much slower or even try to stay still for a moment, maintaining tension. Sometimes when the dogs have not yet learned how to tug actively, they will let go when you stop moving the toy even if you keep good tension, so if that happens, go back to moving but do it much slower as I said. You can also keep things interesting by “playing” with pressure during that tugging phase. You can turn towards her and look straight in her eyes, hold that contact for a couple of seconds than turn away from her again as if you are mentally not strong enough to keep up the eye contact. See how she responds to it and if it makes her “angry”, actively engaging with the toy. I know I am repeating myself but it is really important that while you are doing all of that, you keep good tension in the toy. You let go of the toy as soon as you see little tiny signs of her “dominance” and persistence. Like for example the moment after 3.16 – she was really strong stopping the toy and you were releasing perfectly on time so she felt that her action actually made a difference.

When you switch to a different toy, give that one really easily – as I said, tugging has the least value for her at this moment (out of all the components of the game) so when she was faced with the dilemma – tug or take the toy you can get for free – she preferred the second option. 🙂 So if she switches nicely from one toy to another, let her win almost immediately and keep doing that until you sense she is “all in” and you might have an opportunity to prolong the tugging.

Also try some sessions on the ground with her, see if you can get more tugging dynamic if you are closer to her level and not a giant human. 🙂

And I still suggest you work on all food games in separate sessions. I know food is her main motivator now and she is already good at it, but the concepts learned through food games can really help with toy playing as well.

Those were some nice trainings!
About jumping up – yes it can be fairly unpleasant in some situations and of course it is totally up to you what behaviour you want to encourage or discourage, however I fell like jumping up (at least in some context) is really rewarding for a dog, in particular a small one. It is encouraging confidence and it is a way to action appropriate socially interact with the dog. 99% of the dogs dislike/hate/tolerate if we want to pet or cuddle them during training, no matter how cuddly they are when relaxed. Allowing them to jump on you is a form of social “play” far more natural to them in that context. Eventually you can keep it “under invitation” only, but totally skipping it – you are robbing yourself of a tool that can really help your dog. Especially because there are other ways how to manage it – you can choose not to play this game in the mud :), or you can simply reward as soon as she looks at you rather than waiting for her to actually jump up when you want to avoid it for some reason. And encourage more pushy behaviour when you find it appropriate.

Hide and seek – poor baby, she really thought you were a bad guy lurking from the bushes and you were no where to be found to protect her. 🙂 If that happens again, show yourself to her immediately and continue playing after. Luckily she was absolutely not bothered by it anymore once she knew it was you and played very well for the remaining of the session. But keep doing it because it will help you later on with retrieving the toys. All food games are going well! No problem if she takes a bit more time searching (it is normal because her treats are very small and the grass is high) as long as she is right back with you once she finds it. 🙂 Ut gives you time to either hide better (I would wait a couple more sessions for her to get used to it even more, so she doesn’t have another scare) or when you have a field big enough – just run in the opposite direction as far as you can get. The bigger the distance between you2 when she starts running, the more fun this game gets.

And finally tugging – she was absolutely way better! The moments like after 0.24 is what will ultimately give her more confidence and passion for this game. It can be tricky to “nail” the right amount of tension, especially if you are sitting and playing with relatively short toy, but I feel like you did it quite well! It is a fact that when you don’t have enough tension, the dog will loose its grip, so there should always be enough, no matter what. It will get easier because she will grow more confident and realise it is about her actions, so she will become more determinate catching it and going straight to pulling or shaking, but it takes a couple of sessions where you just have to try your best finding the right tension. You are on the right track for sure, now just stick to it and before you know it you will realise it is getting easier. 🙂 Switching from toy to toy – I have a feeling that she generally picks one she likes more, so I would let her win as soon as she grabs the one that is not her favourite. Just do a little chase and as soon as you feel a good enough bite, let go. It gives you the opportunity to re-start the game with the favourite one where you can do more tugging and it also doesn’t give her time to feel like “oh this is too hard, I will just run to the one I have previously won”. When she gets really reluctant to switch, you can incorporate some “in between” and slowly stalk her. If that doesn’t trigger any reaction and she still chews on the toy, steal the toy from her and start a new round of chase and tug.

Nice sessions! Looking at the first one I was starting to type I would try to first get it in a lower box, but then she suddenly got it and it was easy peasy since. 🙂 As a development of this exercise I do the following – placing the box in all kinds of different places in your room and change her starting positions so she has to go in away from you, towards you, at the side of you,… And also running through (but for this I would actually use a box with a lower edge) because it can help a lot for running contact training.
Backing up – to begin with you can sit with your legs flat out (knees extended) so they create a V shaped frame, so she is not backing up in all kinds of directions but just moving back and forward back and forward. This will give her the proper muscle memory for a nice straight backup. Once she is relatively fluent in short distances with the help of your legs, you can put the target behind her so she backs up until her hind feet are on the target. That makes building distance a lot easier because she gets the concept of backing with a goal of getting somewhere. 🙂
How is playing going?

When you get a chance film me a session of indoor playing, even if it doesn’t feel good. I might have some ideas what else you can try or how to change the dynamic even in the small place. 🙂

Food pocket game is the perfect tool to teach her to “fight” during tugging, because here you can make it super clear without worrying she will loose interest. You want your snack? You have to win it from me. What I often see especially in the beginning of the video and later at 2.14 for example is that you are not creating enough tension on the toy. She is holding on but you just wait for her to start pulling. In that situation she doesn’t feel like she has to fight for the toy at least initially, so she is thinking about laying down or chewing on the toy. So your goal is to create tension (start pulling towards you) as soon as she got a bite. You have to find the right amount of pressure given that she is very small, but there has to be tension immediately. When she feels tension she will want to resist it, like she showed many times at around 1.39 and after. So just don’t be too easy on her – even if you pull too hard sometimes and she lets go – just start the next chase immediately like nothing happened and wait for her to bite again.