May 17, 2011
I try to play with and train my dog every day, but he won’t OUT for me. Can you tell me anything about this, and perhaps give me a pointer?
Full Question:
I wanted to ask about the out command. I will give you a brief history about my dog. I adopted a german shepherd @ 7 months old form a humane society, which, in return saved my dog, Mason, from death row at the local animal shelter. I soon realized that I did not have an ordinary house dog, and was soon at the end of my whits with him (one of many things he did was bite himself out of the plastic airline kennels). I then had the opportunity to watch an S.F. K9 demo and realized the similarities. After talking to the handler about pointers, he was so taken away with my dog that he wanted to train him as a working dog. At the time, I thought that would be the best for him, but he broke his leg while he was away and is now a full time pet. I try to train with him every day because it is fun for both of us, he needs it and because I am starting to like doing this as a hobby now. Mason has improved 100%, but he just wont out for me. Every time, it is a struggle to get with whatever we are training with out of his mouth! Can you tell me anything about this, and perhaps give me a pointer? I would tremendously appreciate it! 
Cindy's Answer:
I can’t really explain the out in an email, because it’s a process that’s built on marker training (at least the way I teach it).
I see that you have the marker video already, so that’s great. I’d HIGHLY recommend the next two videos in the series, in this order.
The Power of Training Dogs with Food
The Power of Playing Tug with your Dog
The out is covered in detail in the tug video, but it’s really most useful if you’ve done all the food work first to set the foundation for the dog. If I had a dog that wouldn’t give me what was in his mouth, then I would not use any non food items for training until I fixed that problem away from training. Struggling to get the toy away from the dog negates any good training that’s gone on leading up to that.
I’d recommend backing up and doing more foundation and set the communication system before going back to toy rewards.
For future questions, you might benefit from learning to use our SEARCH function, which is located in the top left corner of every page of the website. If you type in your key words or question it will find you articles, Q & A’s, free streaming video and links to threads on our discussion forum. Our website has over 16,000 pages and it’s very likely you’ll find the information you are looking for. I hope this helps.
Cindy Rhodes
I see that you have the marker video already, so that’s great. I’d HIGHLY recommend the next two videos in the series, in this order.
The Power of Training Dogs with Food
The Power of Playing Tug with your Dog
The out is covered in detail in the tug video, but it’s really most useful if you’ve done all the food work first to set the foundation for the dog. If I had a dog that wouldn’t give me what was in his mouth, then I would not use any non food items for training until I fixed that problem away from training. Struggling to get the toy away from the dog negates any good training that’s gone on leading up to that.
I’d recommend backing up and doing more foundation and set the communication system before going back to toy rewards.
For future questions, you might benefit from learning to use our SEARCH function, which is located in the top left corner of every page of the website. If you type in your key words or question it will find you articles, Q & A’s, free streaming video and links to threads on our discussion forum. Our website has over 16,000 pages and it’s very likely you’ll find the information you are looking for. I hope this helps.
Cindy Rhodes
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