Hi all, so I have a 14 week old Mal who I intend on doing Mondio with. Her prey drive is outstanding, probably one of the strongest in the litter, but she has little to no food drive which makes it hard to work fast with multiple repetitions in training.

She will follow the lure half heartedly in training... will smell a kong w/ peanut butter, but won't lick it out. I can get three behaviors out of her at most, but then she becomes un interested. This really worries me because if i can't get the engagement i want it will drastically slow down my training.

I've searched the topic and tried: not feeding her for the day, she's been dewormed, and I've tried multiple treats(hot dogs, natural balance log, cheese)

My concern with not feeding her as much would be the fact that she's so young and I don't want to stunt her growth. need help...

Does she eat her meals? Is her weight appropriate and gaining OK?

If both of these are "yes," then my next question would be "what is her irresistible fave odorous tidbit?" and "how short and how much fun are the sessions?"

http://leerburg.com/markers.htm
Scroll to "Dogs with Low Food Drive."

Also, three reps is a good start if you make the sessions great fun.

Also, tell us which DVDs or clips you've seen. (I'm thinking about the chapter in the first marker DVD on dogs with lower food drive.)

But also, I betcha you'll get better hints if you link us to a clip of a session.

How is she at meal time? Is she hungry? Does the sound of the food bowl make her excited?

If so, you can use a handfull of kibble to do your marker training then feed the rest. Also, 3 behaviors is fine, that is your starting point, you just need to build from there.

Also, when it comes to training treats - think STINKY!! So yummy chummies have always been a favorite, along with left over roast beef, half a slice of bacon mixed in for zest...LOL. Get creative and figure out what she likes. It is also not unusual for some pups to have a higher prey than food, so just work on engagement and building food drive.

You can also use a tug in shaping exercises, it is just not as fast but it can be done.

Can you try useing the food by animating your delivery of it in a prey type mannor so that she gets to chase your hands with the food around your to your side etc. This may create interest her in the food...becasue of the prey motion. Or walk away from her & let her chase you with the food a few steps. All ways to animate the food delivery to a dog with less food drive, but higher prey drive. There are different ways to use food as a reward in training.

Does she have drive for a tug? If not so much. You might try putting it on a flirt pole (buggy whip, attached to a brooj handle with a line,etc) & use her prey drive to encourage her to chase the tug. When she is very happy to do this....when she takes hold of the tug...pull her into you with the line & play tug with her. Continue to do this until you can get her to olkay tug with you when you present it to her with your hands & not on the line. You can them use the tug as a reward.

Ed has a video with Michael Ellis teaching how to play tug with your dog.

ETA...keep trying different food...you may have just not hit on the one that really interests her. Some dogs even go crazy for veggie & odd things.

Connie, Naomi & I were all trying at the same time.

We posted together. LOL

BTW, I'm a major fan of starting with food, pretty much no matter how much effort or thought I have to put into making food work with a less foody dog, because it's SO much easier to deal with (and to time the reward, and many other reasons).

Here's a recap of why food is so much better than toys until a certain point: http://leerburg.com/flix/player.php?id=206 from http://leerburg.com/flix/searchResults.php?searchfor=When%20to%20Use%20Food%20&%20Toys%20in%20Your%20Dog%20Training

 Quote: anne jones

... Connie, Naomi & I were all trying at the same time.

When I hit "post," there was a big pause. Now I know the program had three posts hit the thread at once. LOL

Connie...I agree,but there are just some dogs that just could care less about food. I have a friend that has a Czech GSD that will do anything for his tug...but really has zero food drvie as a reward.( Not even big on his meals.) Even when let go for a couple of days with no food. SIGH. Maybe if he was few a raw diet that might be different. I don't know.

Glad I never had the problem. All mine have had very high food drive & toy drive. Thank goodness.

I just went through the same thing with my Mal pup! Except she didn't have much prey drive either. It was very frustrating, and we honestly didn't do much training for a while. I have the ME vids, and tried to make food fun, but she just didn't care. She'd lose interest quickly inside and was very easily distracted outside. I honestly thought that I was never going to get good engagement from her.

All of a sudden at 9 months old she developed crazy food drive and we've accomplished way more in training just in this past month compared to the previous 6 that I had her. Now when I walk her in the neighborhood she prances by my side voluntarily offering eye contact, lol.

Some lines of Mals are slower to mature and "turn on" to training, so there is hope yet.

All good points already made. The other thing to think about is your Pups ability to handle frustration. Lure very small simple behaviors first. Like just following food foward a step or two. Free shaping may help too if you use a high rate of reinforcement. I second making the food like pray. Have the pup chase you with it or toss it. Short sessions that end when the pup still wants to work. Keep positive I am sure it will come together. Good luck.

Thank you for all of the advise... so here's what happened. Since she wasn't really eating I was adding avoderm and goats milk to her kibble. duh, so when she ate, it was 10 times better than any treat i was giving her.

Soooo, I got rid of the avoderm and the goats milk... she's eating the kibble just fine dry and gets excited over hot dog pieces, so we're back in the business. After a week i have her hitting her positions pretty good. going to add the verbal cues this week. She's also doing pretty good with her "touch pad" command.