# Food and toy drive?



## ormommy (Mar 30, 2015)

This I'm sure is completely stupid question. When Elrohwen is talking about needing to build food drive and toy drive in Hazel, because she's a sports prospect, why is that necessary? And how do you build that kind of thing?


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## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

Food and toys are the easiest 'payouts' you have for your dog (and personal play imo). If your dog LOVES food and toys it is very easy to reward them and also to get them in a good, happy, excited mindset for training.

There are many games about building toy drive out there. And many toys that can help utilize food drive in playing. Clean run has a whole section for food stuffed tugs and things like that.

Other people will probably have articles. I like this one 'How to Create a Motivating Toy'

http://www.clickerdogs.com/createamotivatingtoy.htm

There's a lot of drive building games you can do with food and toys though! The possibilities are endless!


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## ormommy (Mar 30, 2015)

Thanks! I know it's a stupid question, but...
So is the idea is to build overall drive, then, by not only rewarding the dog but building his overall enthusiasm level?


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

To me, the amount of "drive" a dog has is how much he wants something, and how hard he will work to get it. A dog with really high toy drive would jump off a cliff to go after his favorite ball. A dog with low toy drive might play with it for a second and then get distracted by a butterfly. A dog with high prey drive will hunt for and chase critters until he's exhausted. Lots of dogs are somewhere in the middle. They will work for food or a toy in low distraction environments, but when exciting or scary stuff is going on they are no longer that interested in the food or toy you have. So the goal is to build up that drive so that the dog will work more reliably and intensely for what the handler has to offer, no matter where they are.

Food drive is pretty obvious, since most people train a lot with food especially in the early stages and the more into food your dog is the easier time you will have when things get hard (lots of distractions, training frustration, etc). I want to get better toy drive because it can be really useful to train with toys in certain situations, like agility and obedience. Watson has moderate toy drive and will work for a toy at home, but not so much in new places. Hazel is already more driven for toys than he ever was, so I want to keep that and build on it. You can build drive, but you can also let it waste away if you don't encourage it.

A couple of us also had a discussion on drive to engage with the handler, even if all the handler can offer is praise and "personal play" (playing and interacting without a toy). This is the ultimate goal, because in dog sports it's just you and the dog in the ring.


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## CptJack (Jun 3, 2012)

Yeah, pretty much what they said. The dog having a really strong desire to some resource or another that you control makes training easy, because, well, you have the Ultimate Reward in your hands. That thing they'll do anything for. The more they want it, the more enthusiasm and energy you get. 

That said, low-ish drive Kylie was much, much easier for me to start in dog sports with than definitely high-drive Molly. Kylie has a ton of handler focus and is extremely biddable. She isn't losing her mind at something I don't have control over (like scents or wildlife or whatever) or flying over the top about things I do. If I ask her to do something for me, she will give it her very, very best shot. If she walks away from me, it's because I've stressed her out or burned her out or just plain pushed too hard too fast. My biggest training challenge with her is avoiding that, and keeping her happy, enthusiastic, and having fun (and thereby moving at a speed greater than frozen molasses).

Molly, if she was my first sports dog, would be a NIGHTMARE. Even removing reactivity entirely from the picture, she gets REALLY high on both activity and the reward and her brain falls out her ear. She just kind of... flings her self AT everything, without any real thought or awareness. She's young and should improve as I get better at figuring out how to bring control to the game, but that's... not actually easy. In fact, right now it's giving me some pretty major grief.


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## Shep (May 16, 2013)

Work drive is the greatest drive there is, and the rarest. My OTCH BC loved working with me so much he didn't care about ANYTHING else. He was quite soft, but his work drive was so enormous it overrode everything. He ignored distractions, bounced back instantly from corrections, didn't need toys or food (although I certainly used them). This had nothing to do with my great training skills, or even my great puppy-picking skills (I picked him because he had cute freckled feet). I just got incredibly lucky with him.

All my other dogs have been soft, but none have been high drive in the way that he was. I've had to get much, much smarter in my use of food and toys and corrections with them. Dogs like them can be just as good and high-scoring as over-the-top drivey dogs (Scot's ring performances so far have been much more consistent and with much better scores than Mace was at the same point in his career), but it takes a lot more effort to get them that way.


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## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

Honestly, I can't use tennis balls very much with training Mia because she's so obsessive and frenetic about them. Maybe if we'd worked on it as a puppy but there's only a few cues she will do when the ball is present. I wasn't big into training when I got her and we played a LOT of tennis ball. Even these days with all her health issues she will try to play ball all day long. She is just obsessive.

Hank is mid-high drive. My trainer (a multiple BC owner if that matters) calls him high drive. But he wouldn't fetch off a cliff or fetch through all his pain. He has some good self preservation. So maybe he's smarter than Mia? Idk. He thinks the heat is stupid and doesn't keep his speed in this weather as well as some dogs. 

On the other hand I can train him and just say 'good boy' and he wants to work. He loves work. I have never had another dog like it. 

Summer has no toy drive but did fine in casual agility especially considering her age.


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

I think what different people call "high drive" really varies. From what I've seen, the malinois and some GSD are truly high drive in a way I've never seen in other dogs. Maybe some labs? But lots of dogs that I see people call high drive are not to that level, but still much higher than the average pet owner sees day to day.


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## CptJack (Jun 3, 2012)

Molly WILL run herself to death for a ball or disc if I don't step in, and she's broken nails and taken a tumble or two that was pretty bad thanks to wind catching a disc. You know, flown over and into ditches, run into a fence, whatever. Doesn't matter, got the ball/disc. 

That said, she doesn't try and play all day. There are balls all over my house, but she could care less. She doesn't try and instigate the game herself, doesn't try and keep it going if I stop it. 

They're a great STRATEGIC reward for her, but we're not using them a lot right now. Right now I'm trying to make her THINK, and she's so 'up' about some of the stuff we're training anyway, toys just seem to drive her around the build and into complete brainlessness.


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## CptJack (Jun 3, 2012)

elrohwen said:


> I think what different people call "high drive" really varies. From what I've seen, the malinois and some GSD are truly high drive in a way I've never seen in other dogs. Maybe some labs? But lots of dogs that I see people call high drive are not to that level, but still much higher than the average pet owner sees day to day.


I call both Molly and Thud high drive, and IMO they both are.

But they are very, very different, and that can make Molly *appear* lower drive than Thud. Because Molly is also soft and comes across as either just very attentive/handler focused or spazzy, depending on what's going on and what the setting is. Her intensity is different, by leaps and bounds, but it's not lower. Thud's hard, forward, assertive, determined dog who is very clearly DETERMINED ABOUT THAT THING AND TO GET/DO THE THING. Molly doesn't look like that at all, but of the two of them? Molly's LEAST likely to be swayed by anything exempting handler correction and I honestly think that's more related to handler focus and biddability than it is to innate drive.

Like. I can't make Thud not chase the squirrel or bite me to save my life and it doesn't matter if I hit, kick, scream, yell, whatever - if he has locked on, he has locked on and *I* am not going to sway him. I CAN make Molly give up chasing the disc when I tell her to.

But Thud is never going to literally fling himself across a ditch (and I don't mean a narrow one, but one of those 4 foot deep 3 feet wide things drain culverts are in and people build bridges over) to catch a squirrel. He just doesn't want it that bad. Molly, on the other hand - without a THOUGHT. Unless I stop her, but that's because her handler focus trumps her drive, not that her drive isn't high to start with.

IMO though, you're right in it being wildly variable, and subjective.


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

CptJack said:


> They're a great STRATEGIC reward for her, but we're not using them a lot right now. Right now I'm trying to make her THINK, and she's so 'up' about some of the stuff we're training anyway, toys just seem to drive her around the build and into complete brainlessness.


Yeah, I think that's true in general. Watson has a pretty good precision heel, but if I bring out a toy he is all over the place forging and crabbing and being a mess. I like it because it gets his energy up (though he won't work for toys outside the house most of the time), but precision and thinking goes way down for sure, and he's not remotely high toy drive. But I guess that's the point - if you can get precision when the dog is high as a kite, you're golden.


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## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

elrohwen said:


> I think what different people call "high drive" really varies. From what I've seen, the malinois and some GSD are truly high drive in a way I've never seen in other dogs. Maybe some labs? But lots of dogs that I see people call high drive are not to that level, but still much higher than the average pet owner sees day to day.


Yeah it really varies. I've heard specific dogs called high drive then I see them and think differently. It really depends on the work that is being done too. A good agility dog could be a terrible IPO dog and vice versa. 

I don't really worry about what label my dogs gets at all. It's all very nuanced and there's a lot of grey area too. I know where I would like to see us improve and we work towards that. I feel like most people do better with medium/high anyways in agility.


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

Laurelin said:


> Yeah it really varies. I've heard specific dogs called high drive then I see them and think differently. It really depends on the work that is being done too. A good agility dog could be a terrible IPO dog and vice versa.
> 
> I don't really worry about what label my dogs gets at all. It's all very nuanced and there's a lot of grey area too. I know where I would like to see us improve and we work towards that.


Oh yeah. And a good bird dog or hound might be high drive for hunting, but low drive for things that people can control which gets them labelled low drive.


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## ireth0 (Feb 11, 2013)

I've been toying with the idea of trying out using tug as a reward for Luna. She likes tug, but she wont tug indefinitely. I don't think I could use it over and over as a reward, but possibly for things that take longer, like at the end of a run if we did agility. 

In class a couple weeks ago we were using a toy as a reward for distraction stays. You stay with the toy as distraction, and then you get to play with the toy as a reward.

The other thing... not -bad- but I don't know what to do with it, is that when she's into tug and you take it away she will jump and grab for it and frankly she could easily take me out because her brain kind of goes off, and she's a bull in a china shop when she's -not- amped up.

So... I guess the drive is -there-, I just don't know how to go about safely harnessing and using it.


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## CptJack (Jun 3, 2012)

I'm not going to lie: tug gets me bitten, a lot. I like it, I use it when I want the dog to come in toward me for some things, but it absolutely gets me some nasty bites and sometimes knocked flat on the ground. I'm sure there's a way to avoid that, but I'm not quite sure what it is just yet and since I want the enthusiasm I get from it (when I do use it) I just deal. I mean besides and out and a good handle on an appropriate tug, which helps a lot (like a deliniated bite area and handle).


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## trainingjunkie (Feb 10, 2010)

I think that frantic dogs get labelled as "high drive" very frequently. In my way of thinking, just because a dog has a ton of energy doesn't really mean that the dog has a ton of drive. When I think of drive, I imagine a dog that is willing to focus and work very hard to get something, be it prey, food, toys, whatever. If a dog is willing to work really hard for something, I consider them high drive. 

All of us use the word "drive" but the more you read and talk to people, the more meaningless the word becomes because it means so many things to so many people.

I used to have a really big chocolate lab. I was a police officer and he was a narcotics detection dog. He was the laziest looking dog on the planet until you said "Seek Dope" and then, man, he was on fire. He loved squeaky footballs so much that he actually swallowed one and had to have it surgically removed. During a search on a semi once, he sliced the main pad of his foot in half and didn't stop working. The dog was a freak of nature, but in the house, he was a bump on the couch.

I considered him high drive despite his easy nature.


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## ireth0 (Feb 11, 2013)

Yea... We have a rope ball on a rope and she never bites the ball to tug, always the rope in between the ball and the handle. But I don't use that one much because the rope hurts my hand. 

My usual go-to is our braided fleece tug, and I usually get her to bite the middle while I hold each end in a hand. 

In class I was using a kong snugga wubba because that's what I brought (fleece tug had been soaked in the rain), her tugging the kong end while I held the tails.

But like.. this dog performs feats of athleticism otherwise unseen trying to leap for the tug.


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## CptJack (Jun 3, 2012)

http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ID=4077&ParentCat=29

This is the kind of tug I actually mean. I'm not saying you're never going to be kicked in the face or bitten, but teaching to grab the bite area and not the handle, teach a solid out, and a solid 'take it' will help a ton. Or well, they've what I got. My nutty tug dog weighs 35lbs.


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## ireth0 (Feb 11, 2013)

I'm less worried about feet and teeth and more worried about just straight up being taken down like a football player, lmao. I'm worried she'll just try to jump -through- me.

I should invest in a new tug at some point and really put effort into it. Her 'out' isn't great but it is better than it was.


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

ireth0 said:


> I'm less worried about feet and teeth and more worried about just straight up being taken down like a football player, lmao. I'm worried she'll just try to jump -through- me.
> 
> I should invest in a new tug at some point and really put effort into it. Her 'out' isn't great but it is better than it was.


Hold the tug out to your side. Michael Ellis has some really good videos that show this. Basically keep the bite area parallel with the ground and pointing forward towards the dog, but stick your arms out to the side so when the dog runs through it you aren't standing right behind it.


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## ireth0 (Feb 11, 2013)

elrohwen said:


> Hold the tug out to your side. Michael Ellis has some really good videos that show this. Basically keep the bite area parallel with the ground and pointing forward towards the dog, but stick your arms out to the side so when the dog runs through it you aren't standing right behind it.


Yea, I've been working on that/figuring it out by necessity, lol. It's like being a bullfighter.


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

ireth0 said:


> Yea, I've been working on that/figuring it out by necessity, lol. It's like being a bullfighter.


Yes! Exactly like a bullfighter. Haha


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