Our 5 month old GSD is progressing well with her obdience; goes up and over the 4' high A-frame wall with zeal; clears the 12" hurdle just fine; loves to play "hide and seek" with the entire family; has distinctly rated her treats as to "what turns her on"; and has a very nice prey drive for "the string" , "the rope", the "leather line" to which the ball is attached ...but not the ball!

Oh, she'll play a "fair" game of fetch but it's the "string" that she wants to chase.

Any issues with allowing that to be her prey driver and the ball being our handle?

Wish i could help you. Mine loves the ball unless it has a string attached. Lol!

I tried to get my Shepherd to bite the ball of the orbee ball, but to no avail. He too wants only to bite the string. When he was younger and even now, I would build drive by holding the string and jerking the ball so that he would have "near miss" bites before he actually connected with the toy (just as Bernard Flink taught in one of his DVDs with Leerburg). The major problem I ran into is that my fingers were always at risk of being bitten because I was holding the string and he was aiming for the string. Even if he did grip the ball, he would re-grip to the string; again, putting my fingers at risk during a game of tug.

I used my Shepherd's orbee to build drive, teach sit, down, heal, stay for Schutzhund; and still use it as his favorite reward for doing those commands. I didn't/don't have any training problems because he wants to grip the string. But I may be lucky that he didn't cause serious damage to my hands.

A suggestion I remember for getting the dog to bite the string: hold the string close to the ball so that there isn't any string for the dog to bite and he/she must must bite the ball.

 Quote: stanley craddock

Our 5 month old GSD is progressing well with her obdience; goes up and over the 4' high A-frame wall with zeal; clears the 12" hurdle just fine; loves to play "hide and seek" with the entire family; has distinctly rated her treats as to "what turns her on"; and has a very nice prey drive for "the string" , "the rope", the "leather line" to which the ball is attached ...but not the ball!

I think this is a fairly common problem. I train them to grab the ball as soon as I get them as pups. However, the string-grabbing behavior can be fixed, even if they are adults. You just have to shape the behavior you want.

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Oh, she'll play a "fair" game of fetch but it's the "string" that she wants to chase.

Any issues with allowing that to be her prey driver and the ball being our handle?

Well, for starters, the ball will last longer (stand up to the biting better) than the string. And, grabbing the string does nothing to preserve/promote a nice grip.

So, what I generally do with very young pups is to play with them with an appropriate size ball-on-a-string. It has to be small enough for them to get a grip on it. I do some prey-type movements with it, and then let them grab it. They will often initially grab the string, but then I help them on to the ball (easier to demonstrate than describe). Once on the ball, I do maybe one or two short, light, popping type tugs on the string and then let them win the ball.

If you give them a tiny bit of fight and let them win when they are biting the ball, they will learn that the only way to get that fight (which most pointy-eared dogs love) and win the ball is to grab the ball itself and not the string. And, never tug with them or let them win when they are on the string. Once they are consistently going for the ball instead of the string, you can use the ball as a reward or retrieve toy.

Hope this makes sense.

Shorten the string on the ball!

Thanks for the suggestions.

We will give them a try ...surely "we" can out-smart my puppy!!

Right?