Tell Me About Tug

[Guest Pandii]

I want to do agility with my pup and hope to use Tug as his reward

He loves tug now, with anything, socks that are on feet, rags, teddies, anything

How do I teach tug the right way so I can use it as a reward

TIA

[Aidan]

If you go to clickertraining.com and search "controlled tug games" there is an article of mine which covers this topic.

[Erny]

And we teach it as a part of our general obedience classes ..... and carry that over to our agility classes.

[Guest Pandii]

If you go to clickertraining.com and search "controlled tug games" there is an article of mine which covers this topic.

Thanks will do

And we teach it as a part of our general obedience classes ..... and carry that over to our agility classes.

more info please Erny

[Erny]

more info please Erny

Will PM you, Pandii. Also visit our website - click on the signature link below.

[Guest Pandii]

Thanks Erny

[Staranais]

There's so much to say about tug I don't think anyone could cover it in a single thread. Getting hands on help from an experienced trainer can be useful if you want to build drive & use it as a motivator. If you're close to Erny, I'd pay her a visit.

There are also some really great book and video resources out there (although not agility specific), I really like the Michael Ellis DVDs, Ivan Balabanov DVDs, & K9Pro does an excellent distance learning course. Probably the agility people could recommend some more agility-specific tug resources, but those are the ones I like.

[Guest Pandii]

Thanks Heaps

Will see what I can do about catching up with Erny in real life

[corvus]

At the recent APDT conference, Ken Ramirez made the point that it's a good idea to treat any reinforcer outside food as a secondary reinforcer to begin with and teach it like a behaviour. By pairing it with a primary reinforcer, it becomes strong and reliable. My dog Erik was already tugging very well, but when I started agility he started having trouble shifting between food and tug rewards. I took him out of classes and started working on that. It wasn't until I used Ramirez' method of introducing a secondary reinforcer that it really took off in leaps and bounds, though. I've got notes describing how to introduce a secondary reinforcer from Ramirez if you're interested.

[Guest Pandii]

can you email them to me please

pandii-007 @ hotmail . com take out the spaces :D

[corvus]

can you email them to me please

Done. :D

[Guest Pandii]

Thank You :D

[Guest Pandii]

didnt come through

Stupid made a mistake with my addy replace - with _

sorry

[corvus]

Whoops. Try that. :D

[korbin13]

I have read a few articles on tugging and my dogs love it. My issue is with how to end the game? The dog is revved up, how do you redirect that energy without having to go for a walk as I currently do now?

[Staranais]

I can tell my dog "that's enough" & put the tug away, and she drops out of drive & goes back to doing her other stuff, since she knows tug time is over. They just learn that through repetition & patience.

Although when building drive, you want to leave the dog wanting more.

[Max#1]

I too am a keen tugger! I found since starting flyball that tugging is a much higher value reward than food. I first taught a 'drop it' command. This gets rewarded with more tug (or a throw of the tug for a fetch-tug combo!). I then would pick the tug up, and give obedience commands, rewarded with a few seconds of tug. I've noticed my co-ordination with this has improved greatly! I've gone from a dog that would sit (or drop) for five seconds then give up and either lay down/lose focus/walk away - to a dog that will sit for up to 30 seconds, I can walk around him, over him, or out of the room and he won't break it! We've been doing stand for ages, I use a hand signal in front of his face and say 'yes' when the dog's nose touches my hand - this is moving on from the dog following a treat in my hand. This morning for the first time he did a stand from a sit, with me 1.5 m away!!!! He did it so precisely!

To end the game, I have a word 'finished'. I use this when playing ball - or otherwise the game never ends!!!!! I take the ball and put it up out of sight - say finished - then he gets a belly rub and a 'good boy'. I have been able to use this with tug as well. Now if only I could 'finish' naughty behaviour as well..... hmmmm.....

[korbin13]

Thanks Staranais and Max#1, they are great ideas. I'll start on trying the 'finish' with a belly rub and cuddle, any excuse Then I might start working some obedience into the game.

By just finishing the game and walking away I always felt that it ended on a negative, like I was stopping because they had done something wrong.

[Tassie]

First thing I do is stop all movement - me and the tug - then put my free hand under the dog's chin (ready to take the tug) and initially, maybe lure with a treat (the swap game - mine already know this one), or just gently roll the tug out of the dog's mouth - no movement, very quiet. As it comes free - huge party - praise - and start the game again - trying to have a 'get it' or something which you'll want to use as a cue.

So that deals with your problem of the let-down. You're right - you don't want the pup to think that surrendering the tug always means the end of fun - but rather that it can often be the start of more fun - you can even use a different tug for the next game.

Then, when it really is the end of the tug game, I would as well as telling the pup he's wonderful, be asking for some other simple known behaviour, and maybe rewarding that with a treat. So you're never just walking away.

Consistency is the name of the game - movement stimulates tugging, cessation of movement, game over. (And of course, game is temporarily over if teeth contact human skin - then you act really sad and turn away. And back after about 30 seconds time out - have had to do this even with my 8.5 year old agility girl who sometimes gets a tad over-enthusiastic

[Max#1]

(And of course, game is temporarily over if teeth contact human skin - then you act really sad and turn away. And back after about 30 seconds time out - have had to do this even with my 8.5 year old agility girl who sometimes gets a tad over-enthusiastic

I've found that this comes down to my co-ordination as much as poor puppy and his over-enthusiastic teeth! And this just came with practice!