Why is it so important to work with a ball on a string with young pups?

Most puppies have some degree of prey drive. Prey drive is the drive to chase and catch things. Some pups have way more drive than others. We use this drive to define the toys a pup will play with. Once a pup has a set group of toys that it looks at as prey items he is less likely to chew on shoes and other household items. Note the key word here is "LESS LIKELY," I did not say he would never chew on shoes.

I also need to mention that I never allow working puppies to have free access to prey items. The only time they can play with them is when I am there to play. Pet puppies are a different thing.

I like to use a rubber balls on a 1/8 inch nylon cord. I get the pups interest in the ball by tossing it down in front of him. When I can get him to walk over and smell it, I give a very small jerk to get it to go away from the pup. This often sparks his interest. When he goes to smell it again - another very small jerk. If you jerk too much the ball is out of sight out of mind. The key is to keep it a foot or so in front of the pup but not let him get it right away. Many novice trainers jerk the ball too hard and too much, then pups quickly lose interest. There is also a timing factor to the jerk. Do it just as his nose reaches out for the ball.

Once the pup will really chase it around we let him catch the ball. Initially he will be very proud of this and we let him savor the moment for a few seconds, but then pop it out of his mouth with the string. This again sparks his prey drive by making him a little possessive of it which builds the drive to chase and catch this thing that just escaped. Don't be concerned about the word possessive. This work does not create a dominance problem in pups.

Once a pup recognizes his ball when we bring it out to play, we know we are accomplishing our goal. Then we can substitute a rolled up hand towel on a string or a Kong on a string or whatever toy that we want for the ball. The pup quickly recognizes the game and associates the object as prey or his toy. Later in life we can use the pups drive to play with his ball as a reward for doing something correctly in obedience or tracking. Rather than give him a piece of hot dog, we give him a tennis ball to chase. It works because we did the background work to make the ball an important item to the pup.

The only important thing that I need to caution people of is that some dogs become obsessed with the ball. As adults, these dogs will chew them up. This will kill a dog by blocking his intestines. The solution for this is to not leave toys laying around when the dog is old enough to have the jaw strength to chew them up. If you have to leave your pup in a crate while at work - leave a bone to chew on or a hard rubber Kong stuffed with peanut butter or cream cheese - this will keep the dog busy for hours.