Greetings,

I currently have a GSD puppy who has great prey drive with the rag. However, even after reviewing the videos on Puppy bitework and Building drive and Focus I'm a little confused about how to go about retrieving the rag from my puppy after she counters and I let her have the prey object.
I am trying to avoid producing a puppy who mouths the prey object b/c I made her "out" when doing her preliminary bitework. However, as soon as she gives me a good 'counter' I release the rag and she thinks I want to play keep away. I don't chase her... instead I let her lay down and proceed to snatch it out from underneath her. However, my puppy always seems to have a full grip on the rag and we just go into another session of me waiting for the counter to release the rag. As you can see this turns into a great play session for her.. but it is a cycle that I would like to put a stop to in a healthy manner.
So I'm curious as to what my options are for getting the prey object from her without making her 'out'.

I'm fairly new to bitework and I would like to make as few errors as possible the first time around.

Thanks (I also have another post addressing her defense drives under "Working in Defense and Aggression" Discussion Forum if anyone wants to help me out in that area)

sounds like things are going well. If you have another person to work with, it might be time to start with a helper. Not knowing your dog or age makes it tuff to asses the situation. One thing about the counter if the dog wins the rag evey time from countering it will learn that moving the grip gets the reward. This is not to say that the counter is not important to teach, but the dog needs to know that a firm constant hard grip is what wins, not changing the grip. sometimes a dog needs to win if the grip is not the best, but it is serious and hard. If he does counter work in from short to longer durations of tugging mach, keeping in mind that a calm full hard grip is what wins, but remember to start with baby steps. In doing this you should also keep in mind that this is why we train. Fix one thing at a time. Unfortunitly most of this work needs to be done with two people. I would also work on the relationship that you have with the dog in protection work. The dog needs to know that you are his buddy and together you guys can be a strong team. (later your going to need good pack order) but for now I would work on building a solid relationship. Don't do things in repitition either. if he wins a tugging match walk him, stop then pat him walk him again, stop then walk him, then let him drop it. Change it up, don't have him always think that when you approach he is going to loose his pray. Sometimes walk into him when he has a ball or tug, then walk away. Avoid repitition in regards to how you get the pray back. I hope that makes sense.

best..Chet

You might want to go to The schutzhund village site and read Armin Winkelrs articles which are somewhat based on Helmut Raisers book Der Schutzhund; it taught me a boatload ; and Armin is a real nice guy who has answered emails though it takes him awhile JMHO