Play Drive

[BC]

Cooper had no play drive at all out of the house. At home, great, play tug, chases the ball, throws it to himself. Outside of the house, forget it. His herding instinct kicks in and he feels the need to keep an eye on everything thats going on.

I have trained him to now play outside of the house. I teased him and teased him with his toys etc and then put them away.

Another thing that enouraged Cooper is if he saw another dog playing with the ball. He felt he was missing out so we started encouraging him to join in, which worked quite well.

After his ring practice, we play a bit of chasey with the ball, but only for a couple of minutes as the last thing I want is for him to get sick of it and he will switch off from it very quickly, but it is progress.

However, the toys are still not a motivation for him. When training in the ring, he gets heaps more joy out of jumping in the air like a gazell and kissing my chin. So now, when he's done well, or if we are finished, I hold my arms out to the side and he has a ball springing around kissing me. He loves it and its a way of me showing him he's done well and then he's all proud of himself.

That is working so I'm sticking to it for now :rolleyes: