Hi everyone. As my dogs have - because of my inexperiencedness - not learned playing with me. I missed the best puppy time to teach it to them, just made what I had seen other people doing, tossing sticks, balls, coconuts. But nothing really interactive.

Following Mark's course Rule of Games and Ivan's Possession Games, one Pit and the Lab-Mix seem slowly to get it that games can be fun and that restarting after the out is the reward, not food.

My second Pit and my braindamaged stray don't react. The Pit doesn't even pick up any toy, while the others at least love to play hide and seek. But I think I have spoiled them with Always rewarding them with food. So they give the toy too willingly over to me and don't react, when I'm starting to move the toy like a prey.

Now I don't integrate games in a obedience session for the time being, because they anticipate food and I also play on other spots which they don't connect with the training lab.

I recently also asked myself, if teaching them (in the beginning at short distance and restricted área) to catch a frisbee would help them more than a tug or ball on a string.???

In case this makes sense, has anyone experience with what type of frisbee to use?

Have you tried working a flirt pole?

That can build a lot of prey IF the dog has it.

You can start playing tug when the dog grabs that.

From there just shorten up the string/cord that the prey item is attached to.

When the dog is really keen to go after the item on the flirt pole you can see if the dog will react the same way with you holding the prey item.

Flirt pole,a tug in hand, Kong on a rope, whatever, is all about your presentation and not just the item itself.

Thanks Bob, that's a good method I think. I have already seen people on vídeos play fantascally with a flirt pole, but always thought this would be even more difficult. But the way you describe it, it sounds very logical.

Yes, certainly it is all about presentation. I'm trying to do it in the way Mark and Ivan show it. I have wrtten to Ivan too and he allowed me to send him a short vídeo with one of the dogs. I did and he answered I should make it much more in a way that the dog comes to me and quase asks me to play with him. I find this very difficult, at least in my case.

I'll try to begin with a flirt pole.

What Ivan is saying is simply to have fun with the dog and it will want to continue the game.

Quick snappy movement with the flirt pole and randomly let the dog win.

If it catches the lure to easily and to often it could get bored.

By making it miss your building frustration in the dog and frustration builds the drive to try harder to get the lure.

Means, if the dog wins all the time or too often he gets fed up because he has no equivalent partner? Like we, when playing chess or something the game loses it's appeal because it is for the constantly winning person no more challenge?

I look at dog training like it's a slot machine.

You keep winning nickles and never hit a big one and you get bored and move to another machine.

It's those "random" big wins that keep you pulling that handle even if you miss the majority of times.

If the dog, as Christina said, wins all the time it gets bored and wants to move on to something else.

Let the dog always "believe" that a win is possible even if it's missing more often then not.

Pretty impressive picture! I'll call my next dog Slot.

Training a dog with a non-food reward means training thru drive. When you see people like Ellis and Balabanov train working or sport dogs, they are training in drive. To train through the dog's drives, certain drives must be present. Working dog breeds are selectively bred for the presence of these drives, and the most common is prey. If you have a mix, his prey drive is likely not equal to the prey drive in a dog that you see someone else training.

You will need to be flexible, and always adapt to whatever works for each individual dog. If you have four dogs and training time is at a premium, you may want to consider how productive the time spent is and adjust your methods to that criteria.

Ex: I've spent a lot of time building drive in Sadie, but genetically, her drive is just not strong enough to be the highest value reward. I end up training obedience with food because she has a very high food drive. She has learned that biting and fighting are self-gratifying, so her protection training is primarily done in defensive drive. Interestingly enough, her fight drive is strong enough that we were able to access some prey drive through that, and she will transition into working in prey during a session.

I of course train my dogs with food rewards. But I think it would be a good thing if they'd find some fun with games too. I'm trying to learn from Balabanov and others, but not in order to imitate them or to push my animals into a direction, which is nothing for them. I love them how they are.

But as long as I have not tried in a better way to motivate them, I can not know if they simply lack play drive or if it is my fault, because I have not been playing with them in the right way and missed the best time.

I have seen - as I already mentioned - successes with two of them. Especially one Pit is very playful if I choose the right hour of the day.

With the second Pit I will go on trying, but if she doesn't show any interest, I will certainly not bore her with this. I want her to have fun and my hope is, that she might discover fun in our interacting, no matter which toy, perhaps with the flirt pole as Bob suggests.

Defense drive she certainly has. She's also very possessiv. That's why I always train and feed separately. There are no toys accessible, except together with me alone. I don't want to use her possessivness or whatsoever to create drive. Too much risk, that she would attack one of the others.

So no attempt to put something into her, which doesn't match her temperament. I can accept if she finds fun in training just with food rewards, but I can not accept that I am perhaps depriving her from something. Perhaps she only seems to lack play drive because of my unsufficient training.

My point is, by far the best way to motivate a dog is to learn how to access his drives. That is what you are learning from the trainers that you have mentioned. If the dog does not have the drives, it will be hard, and sometimes impossible, to motivate the dog.

I am not saying that you should abandon trying to get your dog to play. I was trying to coach you a little on how to read the feedback that you were getting from each of your dogs.

Accessing a dog's drives during training will not give the dog a desire to attack another animal. Using a dog's defensive drive to transition into bitework does not create an aggressive or defensive dog, unless it is done recklessly. As you progress in your training, you will learn to recognize transitions in drive, and you will learn how to manipulate them.