Shaping a tug

Offshoot from the other thread.

Those of you who have shaped tugs, would you mind posting how you did it? I am stuck with Summer so to speak. She has 'issues' with things being in her mouth. I haven't really gotten her past just barely mouthing at objects I'm holding. I got Mia to tug pretty quickly but she did have toy drive to begin with and Summer does not. But Summer loooooves food so I am thinking it must be possible.

Mia's tug though doesn't translate outside of the house yet.

I did with Kim -- even now she really only tugs because she knows if she wins it from me she will be rewarded with food, but it allows for a good bridge and I think over time it has taken on some value of its own...

With her she would pick up toys and deliver them to hand already, but if I were to touch a toy in her mouth she would drop it before I reached it...her delivery to hand was dropping a toy in my outstretched hand...we never touched it at the same time and she was very determined to keep it that way...made it hard to tug!

So in her case I clicked for a longer hold, then for holding while I reached, then holding while I touched, then holding while I held, then I waited until she got a bit frustrated and jiggled the toy to show me how well she was holding it and it exerted a bit of pressure. From there it was just a matter of clicking for more and more pressure on the toy, then to only the most pressure such that she would "tear" the toy away from me...only marking my release of the toy on her hardest pulls (of course she wasn't really pulling it out of my hand at this point...) then just went to an intermittent reward schedule so she never knew which yank would free the toy and earn her her prize.

The hardest part for her was bridging into me holding the toy. That said, working through it accidentally laid a nice foundation for a formal obedience retrieve later...something I didn't know about at the time

As an aside, I did switch to spitting cheese for this. It's gross and I don't like it but rewarding from my hand proved to be an added element of distraction while I was trying to reach for the toy and she was trying to stealthfully discern whether the hand coming toward her was going to deliver food . I could have done both clicking and treating from my off hand but chose not to. By the time we had moved to only marking/reward taking the toy out of my hand I was just using a verbal marker as the precision of a clicker was unnecessary and I wanted her used to the picture of both hands on the tug.

For Marsh a big part was finding the right kind of toy. He likes sheepskin toys best, the best toy I've found is a pogo plush that is sort of a peanut shape with fringes on both ends. He also likes skineez.

I was able to use competitiveness with Gatsby. Gatsby and I would tug, and Marsh would butt in and I could pull Gatsby off and I'd get a few tugs from Marsh.

I let him win a lot.

I also built drive for the toy by not putting any rules on it. Marsh could grab whenever he wanted and I never asked him to out. Instead I just pulled him off.

We worked solidly on it for two weeks, and Marsh is a pretty good tugger now. Good enough that I can use it as a reinforcer.

Summer has zero toy drive. Like virtually none. She had some as a pup- first time I met her she was 3 months old and we played tug with a sock. I didn't get her until 4 years and it was all gone when I got her.

She hates things in her mouth. Very very rarely she'll play with the other dogs but it's usually the other 4 playing with a toy and summer running around behind them nipping their heels. She's grabbed a toy maybe a handful of times in the years I've owned her.

We've used some food toys and she has a command 'bite' that she knows to mouth at the toy. But that's as far as it goes- mouthing. I can't get her to actually grip the toy at all.

That's pretty much how Webster was at one point. I had to start with clicking him just nose-touching the toy, then putting his mouth on it, then picking it up, then bring it to me, etc. I was going for a retrieve at the time and it took a while. By the time I thought to tug with him he was happily retrieving all sorts of toys and the terrier took over pretty quickly so soon her was using my shin as a brace to really tear the thing out of my hand.

I don't know that he disliked things in his mouth, though, just that the thought hadn't occurred to him that it was a good idea. I had the general impression that he had been forbidden from Things before I got him...it was odd how he just didn't seem to get toys at all. *shrugs*

Summer is kind of odd. She also had a thing where she wouldn't touch her paw to yours and still acts like it's 'gross'. I am not sure if she thinks it's icky or if she's anticipating you grabbing her paw or something (maybe?) but she has a lot of hang ups like that. Odd little dog.

Summer has gone from being afraid of toys and hiding (no idea why she does this) and getting excited about them, approaching them, and mouthing at them. At least that is something.

Pretty much what Shai said as far as shaping it goes.

The other thing to remember is that every dog has SOME game that they enjoy. It might not be the same version of tug or even involve tug, but they have some sort of play that will rev them up. Try to find a way to incorporate whatever game they enjoy into the new game you are trying to teach them, if that makes sense. Some dogs like to chase, some dogs like to be chased, some dogs like to race you to toys. I also really like to use flirtpoles or tugs on a leash to help dogs that don't like to tug as it really removes the pressure of the handler. Eventually you can just shorten the leash/flirtpole until you are closer and close.