Kaiser is going to compete in class C5 . One of the exercises in C5 is to retrieve any object that will be given by the judge.

So, I got a bunch of random articles, like a coke bottle, a hair brush, a rubik's cube, a fire hose tug, a glove, rubber dumbell, a die cast plane model, fabric etc etc and he did amazing until the squeaky toy.

He hesitates to put his mouth around it. He will go near it and avoid it and look at me like "Are you really sure you want me to pick that up?". If I encourage him , he will pick it up gingerly and most often it falls down while he is getting back.


So I decided to go the desensitization route and took the squeaky toy and squeaked it and treated him and repeated this for about 20 - 30 times. Then I put it down and marked rewarded for any attempt to put his face near it, then mark rewarded for putting his nose on it, then for squeaking it with his nose, then for putting his mouth on it etc. I am sure you get the idea.

But still he hesitates. Now I make him sleep with two squeaky toys he hates the most ( the squeaky mobile and the corn man ) and I plan to get 15 more squeaky toys and just flood him with it.

Is this a good idea or a really bad idea?

I want him to go and GRAB the squeaky toy with energy , right now he picks it up as if not to squeak it accidentally. Please help.

Ram

 Quote: Ramachandran Subramanian

.... He will go near it and avoid it and look at me like "Are you really sure you want me to pick that up?". If I encourage him , he will pick it up gingerly and most often it falls down while he is getting back.

So I decided to go the desensitization route and took the squeaky toy and squeaked it and treated him and repeated this for about 20 - 30 times. Then I put it down and marked rewarded for any attempt to put his face near it, then mark rewarded for putting his nose on it, then for squeaking it with his nose, then for putting his mouth on it etc. I am sure you get the idea.

But still he hesitates.

Now I make him sleep with two squeaky toys he hates the most ( the squeaky mobile and the corn man ) and I plan to get 15 more squeaky toys and just flood him with it.

Is this a good idea or a really bad idea?

I want him to go and GRAB the squeaky toy with energy , right now he picks it up as if not to squeak it accidentally. Please help.

Ram

Bad idea, IMO.

More of this: Then I put it down and marked rewarded for any attempt to put his face near it, then mark rewarded for putting his nose on it, then for squeaking it with his nose, then for putting his mouth on it etc. I am sure you get the idea.

And I would up the reward ante too when it squeaks on the pickup (not in reward size but in reward value).

JMO!

I have been doing marker work with him on the squeaky toy, with high value rewards. He will pick it up, but he will hold it like it is made of thorns.


When I reward that I am scared that I am rewarding him for holding it like it is made of thorns. I am afraid that I am rewarding the fear.


hell,in my frustration, I even used helga as a reward ( I am sure helga does not appreciate that), if he picks the squeaky toy he can go sniff helga (she is in heat). But even for that reward he will think 10 times before picking it up. That is why I thought may be I should just flood him with squeaky toys and make him deal with it.

People, here is a video of my problem and I need help!!!
It becomes even worse in the field because the object (Squeaky mr.Cool Corn and squeaky cell phone) is far away from me and I cannot encourage him like I can 10 feet away from me.

As you can see he does not lack the enthusiasm. he even picks up things that are difficult like the rubber ring and the mitt.

But some thing about the squeaky toy bothers him. I am not averse to using compulsion either, if it will work and will not have many side effects. I use compulsion on all my dogs , but that is probably 5% of the time the other 95% is clicker based. I would like to go the clicker route if possible.

You see when it comes to the squeaky toy, he does not GRAB it with confidence.

Kaiser - PICK IT UP

Your doing two things at once. For the time being forget the retrieve and get Kaiser interested in the squeaky toy as a game.
Put it on a flirt pole and get him chasing it.
Build the interest then work on the retrieve.
Continue with the marker work on other articles THEN when the interest is built for the squeaky toy add the pickup and carry with markers.
Is he going to be judged on how softly he carries the article or just the fact that he retrieves it?

 Quote: Bob Scott

For the time being forget the retrieve and get Kaiser interested in the squeaky toy as a game.
Put it on a flirt pole and get him chasing it.
Build the interest then work on the retrieve.

That is what I'd try.

Get him like Kaiser at 3:23, only with a Cuz ball. JMO

He is not going to be judged on how softly he carries it BUT


1) If he finds the squeaky toy when he runs out to fetch he stops and hesitates , which is not good. I dont want a dog that has run out and standing there staring at the retrieve object.

2) He carries it so softly that he drops it often.

I would do what Bob says! He has that "eye" for always seeing when a new thing has not been broken down into single links, and this is (IMO) a lightbulb moment:

"For the time being forget the retrieve and get Kaiser interested in the squeaky toy as a game. Put it on a flirt pole and get him chasing it."

Build the interest, then work on the retrieve.

Already started the flirt pole work. He chases the squeaky , but bites the string and not the squeaky.

Also I tried throwing the squeaky with the string and he ran and fetched it gladly 'BY THE STRING'. Atleast he is smart :P .


Also I have purchased 10 different squeaky toys planning to flood him, but now I have no use for them, and all of them will go on the flirt pole , one after an other

Man!!! dogs...some times they can be complicated!!!

I like Bob Scotts idea - and I would try it more than once for sure.

Other ideas I can think of are to use the squeaky toy, and only the squeaky toy, as a reward for obedience. So lets say his favorite toy for OB is the white stuffed thing you threw (he pranced the best for it anyway) you want to take all the other rewards away and only use the squeaky toy. So he has to decide between no reward or the squeaky toy. Sometimes this method will get them over the "hump" so to speak. If you find he is losing motivation in OB, I would stop this method until he can be desenstized to the squeak.

The other thing I can think is he really hates that squeak, so making him earn his dinner through squeaks may help to desensitize him. So take his bowl of food and make him pick up the squeaky toy and squeak it to earn a handful of dinner. The first time you may make him only squeak it 2-3 times, then he gets the jackpot of the rest of his food. Then you slowly build it up until he earns the whole dish.

I think it may take a mixture of things, but I know you will get there!