Connie,
Would you elaborate on building drive in the two pugs you referred to in the other thread?
OK. Well, I am not fooling myself that I created prey drive where there was none (or very little), but I did dig up whatever there was and use their intense food drive for good instead of evil.
(Pugs are generally food-driven to the max, IMO.)
But here is a combo drive-building/retrieve-teaching method for foody not-prey-driven dogs:
Old Earth Dog Bob Scott helped me with this. I started with the back-chaining method, indoors, of marker-training the command to give me the toy (into my hand, but it could be dropped at your feet or whatever). I used very high-value food rewards, but very very small, like Simon & Huey's and Zuke's.
http://leerburg.com/treat.htm
I mix in some tiny bits of real cooked meat, or bits of string cheese. I cannot overemphasize the small size, because (a) it works every bit as well as, if not better than, bigger treats that stop the action while the dog chews, and (b) part of the idea is to
use up calories.
If you don’t/can’t start with a toy the dog already lusts after, you can “create” one like this: Make the toy come to life. It can pop up from behind furniture, wiggle-walk towards the dog and then dart away, zoom close and back, and so on. (You know: Like an instant no-pole flirt-pole for short-legged little dogs.) When the dog starts to get that gleam in his eye of focus on this new thing, it can be the retrieve item. This can take a while, and you, the puppet-master, might have to work. (Again, if I can do this with Pugs, I think that anyone can do it.)
Then (and here was where Bob Scott was so much help), I started rolling the toy indoors,
for very small distances. I forget his term, but the idea was to have the dog remain close to me, the fun machine, and not to wander far enough away to become distracted or lose interest in the game. (This too was done in steps, marking for attention to the tossed toy, then for touching it, and so on.)
This is going to sound so insane to people with real drivey dogs. LOL!
Only very very gradually did I switch to tossing and then increase the tossing distance. I'll bet I stayed indoors, in fact, and built up to the length of the living room, for over a week.
When we took the game outside, I proofed for distraction just because I think commands
should be proofed for distraction.
I kept the game short, putting up the toy(s) (
https://www.leerburg.com/1273.htm and a small soft ball) while the dog was still eager and wanting to continue. I still do keep it pretty short for the short-legged small dogs, unless the big dogs are playing too. The big dogs amp up the energy level quite a bit.
And the toy is never left out. It comes out only for this game.
Try it. See what happens. Remember that you have to be a complete clown once you take it outside, making yourself far more interesting than anything else out there. I praise, pat, treat, and encourage (still). And when I take that toy out, it's with an air of "Ooooh boy, FUN TIME!"
I consider all the time and energy spent on this to be more than worth it for a breed that is basically couch-potato material.
I would love it if you posted results. I have a friend who did this with her Pug, and her Pug now chases a mini ball huge distances on the beach and even into the water.
building drive, re: fetch
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