Toy Drive
WHAT IS DRIVE?
Drive is basically prey drive, but you're manipulating that prey drive into play drive. This enables you to train your dog using toys as rewards. Building drive is very important for all dog breeds. Using toys is more practical than using food rewards. Because you can run out of food rewards, but a tennis ball can just fit in your pocket and it's infinite. As long as you have the ball in your pocket, you won't "run out" of it. Unless, of course, you train until your dog is bored and no longer interested in the toy. This varies from dog to dog. But generally, the more drive a dog has, the longer it will take for them to get bored of the toy.
HOW TO PICK A TOY
Each dogs have different toys. If you have a dog that is particularly having a difficult time becoming motivated, scent the toy with animal scent. Use rabbit, deer, or bird scents. You can also try scenting it with food. You can put the toy in a bag of dog food overnight, or you can make a small cut into the toy and squeeze some treats inside of it.
I like to separate toys into several categories: retrieving, tugging, and squeaky. Some dogs prefer to tug on a rope, some prefer to retrieve a ball, and some like something fun that squeaks when they chomp on it. Depends on the dog. Try to find the highest motivating toy possible for your dog.
HOW TO USE TOY REWARDS IN TRAINING
Initially, you want to use a toy reward every single time your dog does something correctly, during the learning phase. Then you go onto the training phase and still use them every time. On the proofing phase, you instead will begin to use the toy reward intermittently, and eventually, progress to only giving it to the dog at the very end of the session. I would do drive building exercises though for 3-5 minutes prior to beginning your training session. This gets your dog's heart rate up, gets the excitement up, and gets them looking forward to getting the toy.
REWARD PLACEMENT WITH TOY REWARDS
If you use incorrect reward placement, you could cause issues. For example, when practicing heeling, never have the reward come from your right arm. This is because as soon as you grab the reward, the dog will forge forward, anticipating the ball, and then you throw it and the dog thinks he got rewarded for forging ahead. Another problem is if you deliver the toy out in front every single time. This can also teach a dog to creep ahead of you when doing sits and downs and to forge ahead when heeling. Reward placement should be random, but ideally, you should drop the ball into the dog's mouth above the dog's head, with the ball placed in your left armpit. You can also alternate between tossing the reward behind the dog, to the side of the dog, and in front of the dog so he has no idea where it's coming from.
Remember to use correct reward placement when using toys. Doing this incorrectly can cause issues with positions that can take a while to fix. I made this mistake with my own dog at one point and caused forging and he would creep forward during obedience commands.
DOGS WHO AREN'T TOY MOTIVATED
Any dog can learn to work for toys. My own dog, a border collie, wasn't toy motivated. Yes, I know he's a border collie and they usually have a high chase drive. Mine could care less about tugging and chasing after balls, he'd ignore both. I used a combination of all the drive building exercises below, and now have a dog who will work for toys and play with me. You can build drive with dogs who have none.
HOW TO PICK A TOY
Each dogs have different toys. If you have a dog that is particularly having a difficult time becoming motivated, scent the toy with animal scent. Use rabbit, deer, or bird scents. You can also try scenting it with food. You can put the toy in a bag of dog food overnight, or you can make a small cut into the toy and squeeze some treats inside of it.
I like to separate toys into several categories: retrieving, tugging, and squeaky. Some dogs prefer to tug on a rope, some prefer to retrieve a ball, and some like something fun that squeaks when they chomp on it. Depends on the dog. Try to find the highest motivating toy possible for your dog.
HOW TO USE TOY REWARDS IN TRAINING
Initially, you want to use a toy reward every single time your dog does something correctly, during the learning phase. Then you go onto the training phase and still use them every time. On the proofing phase, you instead will begin to use the toy reward intermittently, and eventually, progress to only giving it to the dog at the very end of the session. I would do drive building exercises though for 3-5 minutes prior to beginning your training session. This gets your dog's heart rate up, gets the excitement up, and gets them looking forward to getting the toy.
REWARD PLACEMENT WITH TOY REWARDS
If you use incorrect reward placement, you could cause issues. For example, when practicing heeling, never have the reward come from your right arm. This is because as soon as you grab the reward, the dog will forge forward, anticipating the ball, and then you throw it and the dog thinks he got rewarded for forging ahead. Another problem is if you deliver the toy out in front every single time. This can also teach a dog to creep ahead of you when doing sits and downs and to forge ahead when heeling. Reward placement should be random, but ideally, you should drop the ball into the dog's mouth above the dog's head, with the ball placed in your left armpit. You can also alternate between tossing the reward behind the dog, to the side of the dog, and in front of the dog so he has no idea where it's coming from.
Remember to use correct reward placement when using toys. Doing this incorrectly can cause issues with positions that can take a while to fix. I made this mistake with my own dog at one point and caused forging and he would creep forward during obedience commands.
DOGS WHO AREN'T TOY MOTIVATED
Any dog can learn to work for toys. My own dog, a border collie, wasn't toy motivated. Yes, I know he's a border collie and they usually have a high chase drive. Mine could care less about tugging and chasing after balls, he'd ignore both. I used a combination of all the drive building exercises below, and now have a dog who will work for toys and play with me. You can build drive with dogs who have none.
HOW TO BUILD DRIVE
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