Take it all SLOWLY. Don't push her. Keep it a ton of fun for her. Quit when she still wants more.

Thanks, Bob and Anne.

I'm trying to keep distractions to a minimum, but she is improving with them.

She is wanting more when I quit. She still wanted to play after we got home, but I didn't do anymore.

I'm very encouraged by her wanting to play at the club, and especially on the field. The only play we had previously done at the club was on the fence. TD and helper gave me some clear direction as to how to build more drive (on the fence at home, using more frustration and fewer bites).

Worked Sadie with a burlap rag today. Started with her tied and built some drive. I then worked on trying to get some barks. She's starting to get the idea, but we'll have to build on it. Got one good bark and some muffled ones.

I released her and let her have her evening run. We then played tug with the rag, and while playing I practiced improving her grip. This is going to be one of the most important lessons from my helper training.

She really seems to be enjoying these games more and more, especially since I introduced the rag. It's getting much easier to get her to play, and she's showing better engagement than ever before.

Update...

Last week at the club, I put Sadie on the fence, built some prey drive and played a little tug. She absolutely love the burlap sack and goes into drive much more readily than any toy I pereviously used. After making sure she was in a good state of drive, I backed off and used her frustration to get a few nice barks. However, TD stepped in and he got a nice steady serenade.

I went back to the fence at home this week, and got a very lackluster performance, with low drive and only some half-hearted barks. Thinking I was the problem (less drive for the handler than a helper), I spoke to TD last night during club training. We decided to put her on the fence and let another helper (an old member that I didn't know, who came for a visit) try to get the barks. I played a little tug with her to get her in drive, then tied her to the fence.

However, before I could have the helper engage her, she started barking at me, asking for some play. I had become the prey again. I frustrated her a little bit and got a serenade equal to or better than TD had gotten the previous week. She played hard, though her grip still needs a lot of work.

We did have one setback. Thinking he could build higher drive, the helper wanted to introduce her to the whip and agitate her. She immediately went into a very high state of defense. When he tried to give her a bite to reward the barking, she ignored the tug, instead snapping at his face. She would not go back into prey drive, so I shut the game down.
Even though it was not what I wanted to see at this point, I learned a few things from that. She has a low defense threshhold and must be kept in prey drive, at least for now. I also saw that I was not the reason she didn't bark, so I will concentrate on doing more of the drive building myself, alone at home with her, for now. Even though I'm a relative newcomer to decoy training and bitework, I'm getting a really good grasp of how to proceed, and learning what to avoid.

All part of the learning process to know when to stop & find another way that works for your dog. Some TDs & decoys can get into the cookie cutter type training & have to be reminded that some dogs just don't fit into their typical program. You owe it to your dog to know when to stop them & you did.

Last evening, I tried to do some fence work at home with Sadie. I just don't get the same intensity there that I do at the club. Poor thing looks like she would rather be anywhere else. As soon as I unclip her, she's ready to play.

Any opinions or suggestions would be welcome.

 Quote: Duane Hull

Last evening, I tried to do some fence work at home with Sadie. I just don't get the same intensity there that I do at the club. Poor thing looks like she would rather be anywhere else. As soon as I unclip her, she's ready to play.

"Poor thing looks like she would rather be anywhere else.Any opinions or suggestions would be welcome".

If your doing the work yourself then you don't want or need that same intensity. Quite possibly your putting to much pressure on the dog. To much defense without actually knowing your doing it. That will create a lack of trust in your dog towards you.
Make a game out of it! NO threatening moves on you part. Don't stand full frontal on the dog. Don't make strong eye contact with the dog.
Your job is to get the dog to enjoy engaging the sack, tug, whatever. If the dog doesn't enjoy that with you it certainly wont want to engage any helper. A somewhat timid dog can be destroyed if it's handler/owner creates a situation that is to stressful between dog and owner.

UPDATE

Sadie is starting to show some signs of wanting to do bitework.

I took Bob's last suggestion and reduced the amount of work that I did on the fence with Sadie. I concentrated on building prey drive for the sack; playing tug, putting her on the fence just enough to build frustration with no defense, encouraging the bark. I have also reduced her access to burning off excess energy and to outside distractions.

At the club, we were eventually able to work around her low defensive threshhold. We added distance and reduced pressure, and I alternated between letting her work by herself and standing in and encouraging her, depending on how she was reacting at any given time. I also learned that a misplaced encouraging word sometimes caused her to relax and ease up, and I had to hold my tongue when she was working okay.

In our most recent session, last night at the club, I got to see some of our efforts pay off. When I secured her to the fence, she lit up. I let her stew for a few minutes while I stood 30m away talking. I finally responded to her barking by staring at her from the distance, which increased her drive. I shook the rag and mumbled some mumbo jumbo at her to keep her hot, then did a couple of drive-bys. When I finally gave her a bite, she grabbed deeper than ever before and pulled with great intensity. I did a couple more repetitions of the same scenario to make sure she was working in prey and staying up in drive, then I tossed the rag to a helper and stood off to the side. He repeated what I did with the same results. It was the best work she had ever done with a helper.

I had hung back because Sadie was working fine by herself, and too much encouragement was causing her to lose intensity. However, TD wanted to see if she would bite the helper with me in the picture, so I unclipped her and hooked her leash up, and we did some short bites onleash. She did very well. TD, the helper and all of our friends at the club were excited by her progress.

That's great Duane! It sounds like she is really coming along and discovering something that she is starting to enjoy!

Nice work! sounds like she's enjoying the game instead of working under your pressure. Be VERY careful with that. It's the helper's job to show her pressure. Yours is to help her learn. She can't do that if she's getting pressure from you.