beach_kelpies

Hi guys, I've got a 6 1/2 month kelpie who's very clever but unfortunately his owners are not as clever when it comes to training. As first time dog owners we are putting a lot of time and effort into raising our little man to be happy and healthy. He picks up tricks very quickly but there's a few things that elude him. I understand that he's quite capable of bringing toys,etc back to us but, so far, we obviously haven't been doing the right thing to let him know that's what we want. He fetches toys very well. In fact, he's so focused on the toy that you can put treats into his open mouth and he doesn't even care about them Once he has the toy he's very reluctant to come back to us. We've made sure from the beginning to praise him and throw the toy again straight away whenever he has brought it back and dropped it near us. When I play with the frisbee at home I throw it, he chases it and picks it up and then either stands there looking at me or runs off with it. If I stay there he'll just lay down with it between his legs at a distance. If, however, I go inside, then within a minute he drops it at the door and stands a few metres away staring at it, ready for me to throw. I know there's probably something very obvious that I'm doing wrong but for the life of me I can't figure it out.

Please be careful with this advice, as I'm sure you probably know chocolate can be toxic to dogs, and different dogs can be more sensitive than others to the effects - so even if you get away with it with one dog, others might not be so lucky. Which is no doubt why I said the dog NEVER had it at any other time and said the dog was bigger than the OP's dog so this probably wasn't a suitable reward for the OP's dog. Incidentally - the rate you have given is actually a fairly large amount of chocolate when given as a reward (as opposed to pinched out of the cupboard). Not sure anyone would give that much of any reward to a dog in a training setting - well I certainly wouldn't I am still concerned that you are discussing feeding chocolate to dogs on a public forum, especially without cautioning about possible toxicity or explaining that you should never feed dark or baking chocolate to a dog. The rate I gave was the rate at which the dogs actually started seizuring. Milder but still very distressing cardiac, CNS and GIT signs can occur at lower doses. No offence intended to you, but I felt it was irresponsible to let your post stand without clarification, in case the OP misinterpreted it and caused harm to her dog. I'd have to agree. I can't understand why you'd even think about giving a dog chocolate as a reward. Just because you're not giving it enough to cause seizures, etc, doesn't mean that it isn't causing harm. Toxic is toxic, not just when it's given in a high enough dose to cause severe reactions. It's like drinking a shot of meth's every day. Just because you probably won't have seizures/vomiting/etc doesn't mean it's ok to do it.