Building Tugging

[Kavik]

I am still working on trying to get Kaos to tug reliably so I can use it as a reward.

He will tug at home in the front and back yard, but not when we are at the park, training or competition. Sometimes I can get a tug for a second or so when out, but not for very long, he will just stand there and look at me, or even away from me, and won't engage in a game.

One suggestion I have gotten is to not bring his favourite squeaky toy at all, and only bring the tug. Maybe reward and leave it if he puts his mouth on a tug, and build it up from there? So then build duration and intensity? Sort of shape tugging?

Any other ideas?

One problem is certainly me - I get embarrassed and frustrated and feel really silly if I am there with a tug and he won't even look at it

[GoldenGirl85]

I have a similar problem with Tess, what I do is flick the tug at her feet as though its a snake, if that doesnt work repeat and run with the tug dragging on the ground, that usually gets her going

[Vickie]

can you video your tugging at home & show us.

At home, do you see a difference in his tugging between tugging for the sake of it & tugging after doing an obstacle?

Is tugging how you reward at home? or do you use food or squeaky?

[MonElite]

At the weekend seminar that I went to someone had a simmilar problem to you.

Kamal suggested to shape the tug and he tried all the sch techniques on the dog, - such as flirt pole letting the dog win it easily, pretending to steal it.

Big thing he did with any excercise was to generalise it in all areas, it looks as if you didnt generalise the play with Kaos

[The Spotted Devil]

I swear by the tugs with a food pouch - dog tugs, then dog gets food. It still took lots of work and generalising to different environments but Zig tugs really well now. Still with limitations but we are working on that - e.g. when he is a little tired I don't offer the tug but stick with the food he loves. With the tug toy itself I have a training/trialling bag and I make a great pretense of Zig not being allowed to get his head in it to steal food treats or tug toys. Nothing like showing a dog what he is NOT allowed to have to make him want it more If he tries hard enough to get the tug then he is allowed to have a game.

[Kavik]

Vickie

At the moment I am not using tug as a reward for anything as his response is not consistent enough yet - I can't be sure he will take the tug after an exercise, even at home. I normally reward exercises by either throwing a squeaky toy or food, depending on the exercise (throw toy for movement, food for stationary exercises).

I am hoping to be able to get more consistency in his response for tugging before I use it as a reward in training.

I will try to get OH to video it at home.

Monelite

Yep, looks like I haven't been able to generalise tugging to new environments. I'm not quite sure how to go about that now, or is it too late? Hard when he won't even look at it when we are out.

[corvus]

At the risk of sounding like a nutter and making everyone go "That corvus has no freaking idea"....

This fascinates me.

What I have in my head is a bit of a branch diagram with behaviours branching off levels of arousal. It's not until the arousal branch lights up that you can get the behaviour on a branch below it. Arousal can feed arousal and it's possible to bind a behaviour with a level of arousal using a cue so that the cue lights up the arousal branch and then you get the behaviour... Yeah, it really does sound confusing and loopy. Anyway, the way I understand it is arousal is a strong predictor of what behaviours are likely to happen in the near future. Some only occur when arousal is at an elevated level.

When I watch Kivi especially, there's a definite point where the right arousal level has been reached and all of a sudden he'll jump for a tug and try to catch things instead of ducking. There's a theory somewhere about thresholds that explains it better, I think, but it's like a waterwheel, or group decisions. When enough buckets are filled the whole thing suddenly kicks into motion. Or it's not until a critical number of animals in a group are doing something that the whole group will follow - that accounts for individuals that make bad choices.

These days I don't try to tug with Kivi unless I can tell he already has enough arousal to want to do it. There's no point. I play with Erik first, who is much more easily aroused, and Kivi gets aroused watching us and comes out raring to go. If I then pair that with a cue, and provided I have played my cards right and don't use the cue until it's good and conditioned and end games before Kivi loses his motivation to play, and have generalised it well, I should find Kivi will get to that level of arousal he needs to tug if I cue it... The hiccup is that Kivi is very mellow and sometimes the cue is not enough to get him aroused. I see the same thing occasionally with Erik, usually when Erik is distracted by other things or if he is under the influence of a stronger cue, like that at 10am on a weekday if he's at home he's sleeping, for example. In my mind, to solve Erik's hiccups I should generalise the cue more. Lots of really quick games and dismiss before he can get distracted. To solve Kivi's... I dunno if I can. I can say with conditioning Kivi tugs much more reliably now than he ever has before, but I wouldn't depend on him tugging any time, and not for more than 30 seconds, necessarily.

[corvus]

Also from what I've been reading there are two ways to increase arousal: physical exercise and heightened emotional state. You can put a dog in a heightened POSITIVE emotional state (which is obviously what you want rather than a negative emotional state) by teaching them to anticipate a reward.

Edited June 21, 2010 by corvus

[Kavik]

Not sure I get that corvus

something else I might mention is that if I have other rewards on me (food, squeaky) I can't get him to tug even in the backyard. Just tried it then. No interest whatsoever, wouldn't even look at it.

[Wotagoodog]

HI Kavik - went to the same course as MonElite .... trainer also suggested transfer value. As in through the ball/play toy only after he/she has show some interaction with the tug and use the clicker or verbal cue to teach what behaviour you are expecting with the tug. So he learns that playing with the tug leads to a "higher" reward until they both become high value. Also only use very soft tug with a dog just starting and let the dog win was a big one when starting. My dog loves to chase so have been throwing the tug and trying to race her to it and letting her win and sometimes I win, trying to make it all a very interesting game. But must admit hadn't thought to clicker train it...........der too simple!!

[Vickie]

At the moment I am not using tug as a reward for anything as his response is not consistent enough yet - I can't be sure he will take the tug after an exercise, even at home. I normally reward exercises by either throwing a squeaky toy or food, depending on the exercise (throw toy for movement, food for stationary exercises).

I am hoping to be able to get more consistency in his response for tugging before I use it as a reward in training.

Problem is that if you are just going through the motions for tugging...it is hard for you to find it rewarding or fun & this will impact Kaos.

The reason I sometimes suggest to people to only use a tug as a reward is that it allows the transfer of genuine emotion/arousal/adrenalin you feel to the dog.

If you are just standing there trying to get him to tug, while feeling down & pressured b/c you just want your dog to tug well, you are often not much fun.

If otoh, you get your dog really revved up & ask for something you know that they will do brilliantly, it is impossible for you not to feel on top of the world. When you reward with the tug for a job well done, you are happy & most importantly, you are sincere.

My dogs are happy to tug whenever & wherever, but their tugging when I am over the moon with their performance is at a whole nother level. They are at their best when we are both full of adrenalin. I wish I could just summon that kind of adrenalin in myself at will...but I have never been able to do it.

There is no theory behind this...just something I have always felt.

[corvus]

It was a bit abstract and badly explained even for me! I could find the paper, but I have a feeling it's probably harder to follow than I am. Stupid psychology papers. Maybe just forget about that. :D

What you need is an establishing operation (she says, after telling you to forget about psychology). A cue that tells him "We're about to play tug and it's gonna be SO awesome." The tricky bit I guess is not ruining it by using it when he's actually not going to play tug, or when it won't be awesome.

Eh, I'm going to shutup. I'm sure other people have ways of explaining it that are less confusing and have fewer analogies and visualisations (and psychology).

[huski]

I think Corvus is referring to a trigger phrase or word, Kavik. To use an example: it would be like when I ask Daisy if she's ready to work or asking are ya gunna get it?? She switches into drive just from hearing the words and without having to see that I have food.

[flyingduster]

Paris didn't know what tugging was when I started training her. Soooo, for her 2nd b'day I bought her a special toy. It was a monkey. A SPECIAL monkey! Why? Cos I said so.

*note Paris didn't live with me at this stage, all training was done during the day at work where she spent her time with me*

The Monkey lived up on a high shelf out of sight but within easy reach of me. At various times throughout the day (5+ times a day) I would look at Paris and crouch down, whispering to her about The Moooooonnnkkkkeeeeeeeey, and I'mmmmm gonna go geeett The Moooonnnkkkeeeeyy! Sneaking along, really silly and exaggerated. Paris was all wiggly-butt cos I was being weird and it looks like fun. ?? I'd 'sneak' up to the shelf, and then reach up and grab The MOOONKKEEEYYY!! YAY! *bounce*; TOSS The Monkey! Catch it! Whip The Monkey around! YAY!! Happy! Silly!!!!! Giggle and laugh and look like a LOON! A really REALLY excited loon! YAAAAY FOR MONKEY! 30 seconds or less, enough time to dance around the room being really silly and OTT happy, and all of a sudden plonked the monkey back on the shelf and said 'ahh well' and walked away normally and carried on with whatever I was doing before.

Paris was NUTS!

OMG! Wtf!???

She was thoroughly confused, she was all bouncy cos SOMETHING really weird just happened... But wtf!? She soon settled down again cos I was ignoring her and back to work but you could tell she was thoroughly confused, was I still happy? Was I gonna play? What!???

By the time I started 'sneaking' up to the monkey for the third time, Paris was automatically hyping up. She WANTED the fun that was The Monkey! Something was REALLY amazing about The Monkey cos it made me go NUTTY happy! Of course *I* was having far too much fun in my few seconds of looniness that she couldn't get NEAR *my* special monkey!

Two days of doing that 5+ times a day and Paris was seriously ready to rip into The Monkey! OMG she WANTED it! The third day I let her snap at it and teased her with it rather than ignoring her in my own happy bubble and playing by myself, but nooooo, she couldn't actually HAVE it, it was MY Monkey!

Forth day I let her GRAB it a little once, with a little tug but then it was mine again and I kept playing briefly before it went away.

By the end of my working week I was having little tug sessions with Paris; a dog who had NO idea how to tug or that she COULD tug. 5 days earlier if you held a toy she was holding, she'd let go! Sure she'd chase, but she would never grab let alone hold. She was now tugging! A few seconds only, and I was still keeping it really jazzed up and short, but darn it, she was TUGGING cos she WANTED The Monkey toooooo!

The next week at work we went in leaps and bounds and I could get her tugging pretty well with the special monkey, and I could get really nutty with it in the carpark and let her grab it a little etc and the whole presence of the monkey would now spark her drive to GET IT.

Time and playing about, keeping it short and awesome and Paris will now tug with any soft toy or rope anywhere. She's not massively focused on tugging sometimes in a really high distraction environment but she TUGS happily and easily. It would have made no difference WHAT the toy was, it was what I made the toy INTO that made her want to tug. As long as it was something soft and easy for a less-than-confident tugger, then it wouldn't matter.

And besides, it was fun.

Edited June 21, 2010 by flyingduster

[Cosmolo]

What do you use for the tug Kavik? Have you tried tugs with bunny fur, sheepskin etc?

[flyingduster]

*double post* sorry

Edited June 21, 2010 by flyingduster

[Aidan]

Also from what I've been reading there are two ways to increase arousal: physical exercise and heightened emotional state. You can put a dog in a heightened POSITIVE emotional state (which is obviously what you want rather than a negative emotional state) by teaching them to anticipate a reward.

Classical Conditioning.

[Tassie]

I'd definitely agree with Vickie. The more nutso and hyper you go, the more the dog gets into it. Or that's what I've found with Rory.

As far as getting tug when there's food or whatever around - that takes training - and also a good value in the tug toy. I was really pleased with my Kirra yesterday - had her out as a demo dog for a couple things in puppy class (and also to reinforce "don't let your pup go near the dog in the crate" ). I'd been using food for a couple things we were doing - and then used her nice soft WA tuggy lead to demonstrate tugging - was so pleased with her that I was able to switch to tug, even when she knew I had food on me, and even though there were people and puppies (on lead!) all round her - mind you, again, I had to go a bit nutso to switch her on, and make the tuggy move a bit. Kirra loves it when I play growl at her.

I had success with switching a GSD I had in a foundation agility class (and her owner) on to tugging with a plastic drink bottle in a sock. The dog already loved playing with the drink bottles - and I referred the student to Susan Garrett's article here's the link. To her credit, the student worked through the steps in the article, and within a week had her dog tugging really nicely in the vicinity of other dogs (instead of the lunging and reaction that had been going on before.)

[The Spotted Devil]

Oh, I should also add that I find "growling" at Ziggy whilst we play tug really gets him going - I must look and sound like a complete git but we're both having so much fun that neither of us care And the food pouch tug is covered in rabbit fur too - it's like a triple whammy - food, fur and feral

Edited June 21, 2010 by The Spotted Devil

[corvus]

Kivi likes puppets. He's more of a wrestler than a tugger, but geez, his eyes light up for puppets. His favourite thing in the world is this giant, floppy-limbed, hairy orang-utan puppet that he pulled out of a pile of junk during a roadside cleanup. It even squeaks! He rarely gets to play with that puppet, but it has never failed to get him going yet. Erik pulled a leg off it recently and was so chuffed with himself he basically did victory laps and then sat underneath the shelf where I put the leg and barked at it for the next half an hour. I wanted to get one of those toys with all the bits attached with velcro, but I can't find them anywhere.