# Training a toy motivated dog



## TStafford (Dec 23, 2009)

How do you train a dog that is more toy motivated than treat motivated? I have been training Porter with food, but out on walks he does much better if I have stick than if I have boiled chicken. 

I'm use to click and treating when he does something right and don't really know how to do that with his ball. I can't stop and play every few feet (although I can do that when people walk by).

Since this could cover so many different things...how would you go about training a better HEEL (he walks beside me but doesn't look at me and starts walking off after a few min) using a ball as a reward?


----------



## Chels_girl (Aug 2, 2008)

Training with toys is easy, especially when training heel, as you can get a much more enthusiastic heel. Just start teaching all the pieces of it with food, work on position, eye contact in position, maintaining eye contact and such. Once he has the idea with food, you can move to using a ball. It's the same as with food, but it does take a little longer as you have to stop for the game, but it's usually more effective. Start by asking him for eye contact(After you've trained it with food, preferably up to a minute of sustained eye contact in a non distracting environment.) then click and play ball. Try to keep the game short, one throw per reward or whatever. Make sure you've trained a good out or drop it or it'll take forever to get the ball back. 
For general walking keep using food, but keep that ball on hand, mix it up. He glances up, click and treat, next time he glances up, click and treat, third time he gets a click and to play ball. He'll start being more enthusiastic for that ball.


----------



## l2andom (Aug 30, 2010)

All of our military working dogs get a kong for a few minutes as a reward when they accomplish a job. Seems a lot easier than carrying food around with you all the time. They just throw the kong into a grenade pouch or something and break it out when the dog does a good job ( find drugs, explosive material, etc.)


----------



## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

Does he tug at all? Tugs can make GREAT rewards and are a bit easier to break for than a ball imo.


----------



## TStafford (Dec 23, 2009)

Thanks!

He does tug...but it becomes more a game of "how fast can I pull mom down" than a fun game of tug  Of corse we haven't played in awhile because he killed his last rope toy and we haven't got him a new one yet because he kept hitting me in the face with that one. I'll try one of the soft rope toys. Tug does sound like a good reward and I wont have to worry about him running off with it.


----------



## 123fraggle (Feb 20, 2009)

A tug is a great motivator for a lot of dogs. I made a few mistakes with my tug motivated dog that I would like to share. First of all I did train an out which is correct. What I did wrong was, I did a lot of the tugging too. The dog should do most of the tugging, they don't seem to appreciate the tug being torn out of their mouth or their bodies being tossed around lol,(mine is a small dog). Also, it is important for the dog to win sometimes. Let go of the tug and have the dog bring it back to tug some more. Make sure that you have "an end" to the game. My dog didn't like to tug until a trainer pointed out the error of my ways, now she loves to tug.


----------



## LazyGRanch713 (Jul 22, 2009)

TStafford said:


> Thanks!
> 
> He does tug...but it becomes more a game of "how fast can I pull mom down" than a fun game of tug  Of corse we haven't played in awhile because he killed his last rope toy and we haven't got him a new one yet because he kept hitting me in the face with that one. I'll try one of the soft rope toys. Tug does sound like a good reward and I wont have to worry about him running off with it.


Have you tried using a ball on a string/rope? They're easy to carry, and you can "tug" with it as well.


----------

