I just got this video a few days ago and have watched it several times already. I'm going to start training these methods with my 12 month old puppy bitch. The one thing I did not see in the video is the appropriate way to end the drive building session.

Do you end with the dog in drive ...pursuing the ball ... or end with the dog doing a carry?

Thanks for the help.

One thing that you will need to do for the whole method to be successful is stop thinking in terms of a set routine. The goal of this program is to learn the tools/skills and use them accordingly based on the needs that your dog is showing you at that moment. Sorry if this sounds like a very cryptic answer, but it will make sense once you have been working with the method for a while.

With a young puppy, you will need to get the ball back somehow other than a conventional out command. Either by trading for food, or tricking the pup for another toy that only results in drive building and an end of game. With that said, it is easy to fall into the same thing. Learn from my mistakes! Don't do that.

I always let my young dog carry his toy back to the car, and then I would throw a handful of hotdogs into his crate. He would get in the crate and drop his toy to eat all the food. I would take the ball back. This resulted in an automatic out at the crate. While this certainly isn't a huge deal, it doesn't make the "no out unless told" idea perfect.

Remember to leave the dog wanting more, not worn out and becoming stale. With a puppy the amount of time you spend will be very breif, but can be done several short sessions a day.

This dog is a year old, so I don't see what the problem is teaching the dog to out.

Good catch... I missed that. John is right. I just remembered the word puppy, thought it said 12 weeks not 12 months!

Well from what I gathered in the video, you do not teach the out until you have done the drive building. So if I'm building drive and get to the point where she's gripping the ball firm and hard (not going to let go by just yanking it) ... what do I do then? Is that the moment to teach an out command?

As I understand it and the way I've been doing it, you teach the "out" when you can no longer get the prey item back by trying to swap it for another prey item or food.

I always had a problem getting the ball and string back. There is nothing on earth my dog loves more than the ball and string. He would not trade for anything. I would have to wait for him to drop it, try and distract him with movement or commands and wait. I finally got another ball/string and would use it like in two ball. Which probably wasn't right but was all I could do. At times it was difficult but I didn't want to use corrections when he was young. At the end of a session I would just run him in the house and wait for him to drop it. I never let him play or chew on it. I would just keep him moving until I could get it back. At 14 months I decided to teach the out by giving a correction like Bernhard did in the DVD. It was a bigger correction than I would ever have done without seeing it. Two corrections and the out was learned. The advice you always get is to trade the ball for another treat. What do you do when the ball is the ultimate treat and he won't trade it for anything? I guess I should have asked that six months ago.

When my dog has the ball and I decide it's time to end the session, I put movement into a second ball and do drive building until he drops the first ball to chase the second. Then I hide the second ball when I'm turing away from him and run him back to the truck and into his crate.

When he learns that dropping the ball means that he's going to be going back to the truck I will start teaching the "out" as shown in the video but will give him the ball back by immediately going into drive building so that he learns "out" doesn't mean it's going to end the session.