Well, can you get a smaller tug with two handles?

I make mine out of old fire hose and use nylon webbing for handles and our local leather guy sews them up for me.

I do however buy tugs from LB as well because they are good quality. And I am now out of the old hose until my FD retires another hose.
My tugs are for training and playtime really.


These tugs are great:
http://leerburg.com/minitug.htm

The two handled jobber looks like it will do the job. I may order one if I can't find a suitable one in my dog stuff; he seems to like the thicker tugs a bit better.

I have bought other items here. Always excellent products and customer service.

I also have the two handed mini tug and it is great, highly reccommend.!

My dog works for tug/fight too though in my profile the rewards are in the snow not on my person so dog digs to source...

But what I wanted to say is I feel your pain! I have a 40 lbs retriever (with one heck of a head shake) and amongst other job duties, my elbow was wrecked. With the shake, I can physically not hold on sometimes, you girls with the "big dogs' really have your hands full!

I had to tug one handed for a whole summer (not as fun a fight for the dog). I went to physio, accupuncture a chiropractor and then finally broke down and got a cortizone shot.

Well, fixed it like a miracle!!! I hate to recommend drugs but when I could not even lift a wine glass to my lips i knew I was in trouble I would not have been able to go back to my winter job without it. (Unfortunately I bet it comes back now that I am at my more strenuous of seasonal jobs )

Are you making any progress trying to solve the shoulder issue, or is it a for life thing?

I have one other question for you guys....how are you playing tug?
Are you trying to bring the dog up high or off the ground?

I play tug with Jesea and a lot of it is low and side to side right now until my elbow is stronger. (most of it is ball playing, but I am trying to strengthen my arm now)

She also likes to "bite and hang" and by that I mean I bring to either my right or my left side and lift her up, she then wraps or will just hang there and kind of do a low grumble or she kind of "wrestles" with me a bit by shaking her head. I then release her, she does a little Mal spin and either comes back for more or if she is tired she will platz on my left and hold her tug.
If she is tired, I engage her one more time and then let her carry the tug back to her crate. I do not let her come up on me when she is fully in front of me, it is always to the side.

She is fun to play tug with as she is really drivey, and I do usually spin her a few times, but other than that, she can wear me out if I try and play "monster tug" with her.

As long as I keep tension, she is good with the game. But, give a tiny bit of slack and I have a gator trying to re-bite (grip).

 Quote: carol boche

I have one other question for you guys....how are you playing tug?
Are you trying to bring the dog up high or off the ground?

Low, back and forth. I have to keep tension or I can get some crazy rebite action as well.

My dog likes to be swung, but this is always low and for short distances, like a quarter turn at a time. No bite and hanging for us. My dog is keen also to 'out" for a toss of the rag, he then gives it some "death shakes" and comes in for more tugs. The actual tugging is not hard on me, it is the torquing the dog is so fond of that really jars my elbow.

Another issue I have is that our reward is actually articles of clothing gernerally. With large gloves on, gripping large slippery snowy/fozen articles and holding on to give a good fight requires tight grip strength. The gripping itself makes the elbow issue worse. Also the skiing (lots of poling?), rescue tobboggan handling, digging lots of holes and a mirade of other factors contribute. It is not just the dog rewarding that led to the injury. (wow that was some whining on my part )

 Quote: Jennifer Coulter

 Quote: Carol Boche

I have one other question for you guys....how are you playing tug?
Are you trying to bring the dog up high or off the ground?

(wow that was some whining on my part )

Nah, in the line of work we do, we deserve to say OUCHIE once in a while.

For Grim he is not a side to side tugger/ head shaker. He pulls straight back steady grip, steady pull but tends to circle around me as he tugs. His back and rear legs do all the work.

My other dog is a side to side shake that was brutal but she does not have the same amount of strength as he has and she is food driven so tug is not a reward.

It is not as painful if I can keep him lined up with my centerline and his head about the level of my thighs because then I can control the circling as he tugs and I can use my good arm. If I pull up towards my waist (his front legs off the ground) it really amplifies his tugging and he likes it. Can't do that with one arm either.

I have been to the doctor twice for it, it was from a hard fall in the woods about three years ago. No joint damage on the x-rays. He said all they could really do was give me cortizone shots. I had one and it did help for several months. But I figured that I did not want that long term so just live with it.

I got to thinking about my original question.

My last dog was food driven and I have not worked with a toy dog before. The food dog is rewarded at source period.

Is the actual reward the toy at source or the brief game afterwards? Grim likes to get the toy for sure but it jazzes him up more if we play a few seconds then I take it away.

If it is the toy itself, I could throw anything at source and he would be happy. He has no particular attachment to any specific toy as do some dogs I have seen, though he does constantly pick up and carry around and curl up with loose objects in the absence of a toy. The one that is interesting to him is the one that is moving and grabbing the moving object seems to have reward in iteself.

But if it is the brief ensuing game then to me swapping the ball for a tug or playing two ball is the same thing; the reward is not happening right at the source but around it and not immediately at the time of the find.

So is the ball "popping out" of source the actual reward or a bridge like a clicker and the reward is the play?

The reward at source (ball, tug, etc) in my opinion, is in fact a bridge. Rewarding at source, initially, teaches the dog to go to source because that is where the reward comes from. As you pointed out, with many dogs, it's the play aferward.

DFrost