Thursday, September 2, 2010

Shaping Liz to tug with DISTRACTIONS

One thing I have figured out from our recall course is that over time Missy Liz has figured out that she likes food the best so will refuse to tug or play if she knows food is around,....she really is the smartest dog!! Usually food is a good reward for her anyway because it helps her calm and think, and she is one of the dogs that spends way too much time way too excited. ;-).

I did decide to work with her on learning to tug with the distraction of her breakfast. We have a lot of training to do with distractions so this is a good start!

I am so sorry for Crickets barking, when I did this again this morning I left Cricket and Breeze sitting next to us in a down stay and they minded their manners much better, but I wanted to capture the beginnings of shaping Liz to tug.

I was suprised at how fast Lizzie got the idea that we had changed some things and she needed to focus and play to get her breakfast! Poor Liz being forced to play, LOL!

7 comments:

Chris and Ricky said...

Good girl Liz!! OMG, Ricky would look at me like I was out of my mind if I tried to get him to tug for his meal!!! Liz is really getting it though and that is awesome!

Unknown said...

Wow! Great job getting Liz to tug for her breakfast!
What a great way to lose those calories too !! (LOL)

Kathy Mocharnuk said...

Liz did sit and look at me and would not tug and just kept staring at the food for awhile, LOL, I am sure she would like to "talk" to who ever she thinks gave me the idea of using her food, her food is near and dear to her heart!

Sara said...

This is a really hard task for Oreo too. I should practice it more often. Doing it with breakfast is a great idea. I always do it with higher value treats. Maybe that is too much of a distraction. Thanks for the idea.

Liz did great & caught on fast!

Jules said...

Great training technique! Go Liz! and Kathy! :)

Sagira said...

What a hard life, having to play to get food. The poor poor girl! haha

Marie said...

Good job Kathy. It's a challenge with the Shelties constantly to keep toys and tugging even kind of in the picture when food is around.