When I bought the dog from his previous owner apr.1 yr ago he had a chewy grip most of the time. After training BDFG 6 months his grip improved. He does not chew on the frisbee/ball, like he did in the beginning. I seems like he anticipates on the out and then gets a chewy grip.

 Quote: Rosalinda van den Ham

I seems like he anticipates on the out and then gets a chewy grip.

That'll do it.

To get an idea on where he's at, how much improvement did you see when it got better? did the improvement taper off when it could have obviously been better?

There is no define line to any sort of training. Every dog is different in their abilities. One dogs' good grip may be anothers' average grip. This is where a good trainer is invaluable. Said trainer would have to spend a bit of time to see the changes through training.

I spent 2 weeks, 4 times a day working on one dog. I saw absolutely no improvement that warranted more training time to get his grip up. Had he given me the slightest bit of hope then I would have continued. He was a 16 month old GSD.

Howard

Not super experienced, but it sounds like you may be "outing" too much.

Not sure if this is correct, but what we do is to play tug, do the drive work, focus work and mix in some OB. I let her win most of the time with tug and she runs around the yard for a bit and then comes back to me.

I let her bring the tug to me so she is giving it to me to tug again. Play tug some more and let her win. We do this several times repeating tug and drive. Eventually, put her in a sit and say out. After she outs, give it right back to her. This way she associates the "out" with more play instead of trying to take it away.

We only do the out a couple of times. She isn't chewy in my opinion.

Would like to hear other's comments on this.

Dave

 Quote: david walter

Not sure if this is correct, but what we do is to play tug, do the drive work, focus work and mix in some OB. I let her win most of the time with tug and she runs around the yard for a bit and then comes back to me.

I let her bring the tug to me so she is giving it to me to tug again. Play tug some more and let her win. We do this several times repeating tug and drive. Eventually, put her in a sit and say out. After she outs, give it right back to her. This way she associates the "out" with more play instead of trying to take it away.

We only do the out a couple of times. She isn't chewy in my opinion.

Would like to hear other's comments on this.

Dave

Dave, this is interesting; I've been doing some of the drive building as well, and realized that I had been having Chula out the tug (ball on a string) way too much. And her grip was very chewy. Not that the grip itself matters to me, since she's only a family dog, but it's a symptom of the dog's uneasiness in outing.

So I quit outing so much and found that her chewiness subsided somewhat. (I started playing w/ her the way you've been playing w/ your dog) I also place my hand on her snout (like Bernhard did in the video) when she's chewing, and that helps as well. And I do the 'into my arms' a lot.

The other benefit has been that she outs now with no coercion on my part. (most of the time )

For the op, have you tried using two identical tugs (trading) get him to out more readily?

I'm glad I found this topic. I know some forums discourage replying to older topics, someone please tell me if that's the case here.

I'm just starting to see this issue with my pup. I thought it might have been his teething, but it looks like it might be me. He tends to pick up sticks while we're on walks, should I trade for a treat instead of telling him to "leave it"?

Scott, does your pup get "chewier" on the object when he gets near you, or does he chew just as much when he's carrying something off on his own, away from you?

If he starts mouthing the prey when he gets near you but has a calm grip when left alone to carry something, then yes, it's most likely you - in which case there are ways to improve his grip.

If he chews all the time, regardless of how close you are to him, or how much he may be anticipating an "out", then it's probably genetic... A genetically mouthy grip is a lot harder to fix, unfortunately, so it might be useful for you to determine which it is with your pup before you invest a lot of time and effort into fixing his grip

Ah, great points! That sparked the ol' gray matter.

My wife and I have been comparing the pup to the older dog who has a full, deep, and calm bite. He mouths his toy occasionally, but it's usually two or three slow and deep bites when he's walking around with it. If I don't tell him to "drop it" when he brings his toy back he'll just hold it until I either start tugging or give him the command. So, that's my basis of comparison at this point.

The pup does mouth all the time, but we think that might be because of the squeaker inside his favorite canvas bone. We just watched him with it and when he's mouthing that toy it's almost always on the squeaker. I wasn't sure about playing tug with such a young pup and I didn't want to risk any damage to his teeth so I've only played tug with him a few times. He was always tenacious when I did play tug with him and his mouthing seemed to be him trying to get a better grip and more leverage. Now that he's teething I only give him the most minimal resistance possible when I have him "get it" from my hand. But, I just did a quick trial run with him using a bigger canvas bone (real toys are on the list and on the way next month) and having him bite the middle while I held both edges, including the squeaker. He was getting it from me with a deep and full enough bite for a teething puppy and wouldn't start mouthing until he started looking for that darned squeaker. So, no more squeaker toys. I think that might be it. He likes sticks and whenever we let him pick one up, he always just holds it about 3/4 of the way back in his mouth with no mouthing at all.

Another question that popped into my head, since he's teething we keep a dental Kong in his crate. Would that promote mouthiness with prey?

Ok, it sounds like the squeaker may be promoting the chewing. So I guess that would make it your fault, since you taught him that chewing is fun by giving him squeaky toys (kidding, but it's good that you figured it out early in his training).

I really don't have the experience in bite training to be generalizing like this, but I have noticed that even dogs with very calm grips on, say, a bite pillow or a sleeve, will still have fun chewing on particularly squishy toys, such as the orbee ball.

Mine treat the orbee like chewing gum and if they have it in the house I'll hear a gleeful "squish-squish-squishsquishsquishsquishsquish squish-squish squishsquishsquish" for hours on end

Yet it has no effect on their grip in bite work or the calmness of their dumbell hold.

So I'm not sure about your kong question. My feeling is that no, if he has a genetically full and calm grip, he'll probably limit his chewing to squishier items (which I'm sure he'll greatly appreciate during teething).

Of course if you really want to make sure you don't ever promote chewing on toys, you could just stick to giving him bones for his teething. At least until someone more knowledgeable comes along with a more definitive answer

Btw, if you don't have an orbee yet, you need to get one. Best training tool ever. It's like crack to my dogs. I've never come across any other toy that 1) they loved so much 2) as safe and durable 3) as perfectly suited to drive training.
It must be something about the firm squishy texture that makes the dogs so eager to grab it (yet won't fall apart like most balls)

The medium size is best, I find - small is too small to maintain a medium or large dog's interest and the large is too cumbersome during training - the medium is perfect!

(I know you didn't ask about drive-building toys, but finding THE perfect toy that the dog goes crazy for will make training so much more enjoyable & progress so much more quickly for both of you )

Chew toys are chew toys, and tug toys are tug toys. Most dogs won't transition their chewiness with chew-type toys over to tugs.

I strongly recommend the Building Drive and Focus video, which addresses at length issues of grip.

In a dog with a genetically sound grip, chewiness is usually the result of conflict. Either the dog gets chewy because it anticipates the out, or because of another conflict with the handler.

My dog will happily chew her Kong, her Everlasting ball, etc. But they aren't considered prey items. They're just chew toys.
Prey items are never permitted to be chewed- Orbee balls, tugs, etc.

She does have an old Orbee that has long since lost the string, that she happily chews on.

An item is either prey, or chew. Never both.

The dog either must carry, hold or out. With a young dog, out is accomplished by offering another, similar prey item and making a trade.

Then, the dog has no conflict about the out, because it becomes a continuation to the game- not an end.

As for the mouthing during a tug-fight, it might be a good idea to watch the DVDs before you resume with your pup's bite training. The DVDs contain a lot of info on how to fight, how to set the grip, how to teach the dog to be calm and comfortable when holding the prey close to the handler and so on.

Kinda hard to explain that sort of thing in writing. You'll get a much better idea once you see it in action from an expert (and it's hard to think of someone who's more of an expert on developing calm grips in protection than Flinks).

Good luck!