I experimented this week with Lilly’s play training. As I’ve mentioned, she usually does not play in front of other dogs, including Ginko at times. She has, however, learned that some things simply do not interest him. And, in those cases, she’ll play fetch (or whatever) in front of Ginko. Sticks, for example, allude him. He does not get the point, so if he steals the ball, which he often does, then Lilly finds a stick to play with instead. To see if I could combine a toy in which Ginko heretofore hasn’t shown interest with Give Me a Break motivation training, I got out Lilly’s fabric frisbee.
I keep the frisbee in a drawer. I also keep Lilly’s very special ball and her tug toys in the drawer. These are reward toys, not just toys. Their regular toys (kongs, stuffed toys, etc) live in a basket in the kitchen.
I played a little Give Me a Break with Lilly and had Ginko standing right there. His presence didn’t faze her since he does not care one iota about the frisbee. After Lilly showed increase motivation toward the frisbee from the game, I tried tossing it to Ginko.
Shock of all shocks, he caught it.
So, I started alternating — one throw Lilly, one throw Ginko, and it was going really well. I’m not sure how much fun Ginko thought it was, but it really got Lilly amped up. She was very motivated to catch and not all worried that Ginko would mug her for the toy.
To keep the game going, I started rewarding each one with food for each catch. My mistake … once I brought food into the scenario, Ginko only thought about the food. Toss after toss bounced off his nose as he stared down the treat bowl.
Silly me for assuming that Ginko would magically get the idea that the food was meant to encourage him to keep playing, not vice versa. I’m so used to Lilly’s quick learning curve that I sometimes forget that Ginko isn’t as quick on the up-take. He just thinks about things differently. Food always ranks highest, and he doesn’t need food to encourage play. Play is it’s own thing for him.
Despite my miscalculation, I think the experiment worked. Lilly got VERY excited about the frisbee. Perhaps in the future, I can use it as a training reward all it’s own, if more game training works.
We tried again a couple of nights later, with just the frisbee and no food. One toss Ginko. One toss Lilly, and it worked. They were both VERY excited. I had to restrain the one NOT catching, in fact.
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