Catching Treats

[Rebanne]

I would like to teach my nearly 8 month old greyhound to catch treats. He is a very soft boy and the only training I have heard of, years ago, was if they missed it you had to move quickly to stop them getting the fallen treat. I reckon this would put my dog off for life :laugh: I want to use it when free stacking him for the ring. Warrior is coming along nicely in the ring but has the potential to be a bit of a plodder. I thought treat catching could keep his interest high. The other problem is he is not very interested in food in the ring but I was hoping if he got super excited at home some of that might carry through. :)

[stonecutter]

I started by holding the treat 1cm off Ziva's nose when she was sitting and drop it in. You're right in that the key is to make sure any treats that fall on the floor are swept up by you as you toss another one :)

Then just slowly increase the distance. I think it was TerraNik who gave me this method. I started with big cubes of cheese but now it works with anything - even chunks of frozen broccoli :D

[Rebanne]

do you cue it stonecutter?

eta no sitting for this game, need him to stand to attention :D

Edited February 8, 2012 by Rebanne

[Weasels]

I used the treat-dropping method too as a focus exercise for Weez (and also so both of us were less embarassed when I threw treats and he let them bounce off his face )

As for floor sweeping, I had a volunteer in the foxdog ;) She's quicker than I could ever be!

Edit: I cue with "Weez catch!". It gets instant attention when all else fails.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Weasels

[TigerJack]

I don't practice with treats, its dinner. They learn pretty quick when their dinner is getting snapped up by the smaller dogs underfoot. Just done this with my Kelpie boy and he's learned pretty quick not to bother searching for the ones he misses as they are already long gone.

[stonecutter]

do you cue it stonecutter?

eta no sitting for this game, need him to stand to attention :D

I wasn't sure until you asked the question :laugh: she can do it siting or standing - but I usually say "watch" and then at a random time I toss a treat.

If she stops watching me - I actually throw one aimed to hit her in the face, then quickly scoop it up - you snooze you lose!

Every so often after catching one, she'll also get a bonus treat by hand as a jackpot :)

[WExtremeG]

I taught this by throwing a (soft)toy at her face...she had to catch it or it would lightly hit her on the head lol. she can catch about anything now.

I do use the 'watch' command first though.