# Video: Tortoise's Tugging



## outwest (May 1, 2011)

He is super cute and well trained, too.  thank you for sharing!. I got confused about how many tuggy toys were around. LOL


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## Quossum (Mar 18, 2011)

Nice job! I like your work with impulse control and your touching his sides while he has the tug in his mouth. I try to smack Sugarfoot's sides pretty good while he tugs, and grab his muzzle as well!

Keep up the good work! I think tugging has great value. 

--Q


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## kukukachoo (Jul 26, 2012)

I loved watching your interaction with him. What a smart guy. His tail was going 50 miles-an-hour the whole time! He is happy!


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## tortoise (Feb 5, 2012)

outwest said:


> He is super cute and well trained, too.  thank you for sharing!. I got confused about how many tuggy toys were around. LOL


I'm using 3 tugs for bite development. I'm working on hardening his bite in tug play. The first is braided fleece, the second is soft stuffed leather, the third is hard rolled jute.


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## tortoise (Feb 5, 2012)

Quossum said:


> Nice job! I like your work with impulse control and your touching his sides while he has the tug in his mouth. I try to smack Sugarfoot's sides pretty good while he tugs, and grab his muzzle as well!
> 
> Keep up the good work! I think tugging has great value.
> 
> --Q


Touching his sides is an exercise in trust, grip and possessiveness. I love tug play. It it so technical to me, completely fluid and reacting to the dog. I could point out 50 of my handling mistakes in those couple minutes. But we were just having fun. 

He had his neuter stitches out today (2 days early) because he was standing at the patio door crying/screaming at me. Nothing shut him up until I tossed a toy. Then he was in doggie heaven. He is free to have a bath and jump again. Yay!


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## Arcticfox (Dec 12, 2011)

This video is pretty amazing  Could you give more explanation on what you are doing and why? 

I like to play tug with Tesla too, but generally with no goals in mind, other than teaching "drop it" when she was younger. I see it can be a really useful tool for plenty of other things now, but I don't really know what to do with it. I'd also love to get her more addicted to tug. She likes the game now, but isn't really super excited about it, same with fetch. She's more food motivated than toy motivated I guess, and I'm ok with that. But it'd be nice to get her really tug motivated as well, since I'm thinking about starting agility with her soon.


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## tortoise (Feb 5, 2012)

Tug is a game where you reward what you like! So you can teach your dog to play your way.

My goals are:
improve engagement (his desire to interact with me), 
develop calm grip (not chewing on the tug, which is a sign of stress or poor temperament)
teach targeting (biting safely in the center of the tug, switching tugs), 
develop full bite (biting safely to protect the canine teeth
develop "grip" (hanging onto the tug firmly no matter what)
increase speed on turns
stimulate prey drive (more drive = more trainable)
teach a hard strike
and not loose my "out" (drop it)
not in this video, I teach a straight line tug that is for service dog work like opening a door or retrieving a blanket.

When I like something I get, I reward by interacting with him, letting him win the tug, by yielding (let him jerk the toy but not win it), switching to a higher value tug toy, or a change in rhythm / pattern (like playing rough for a bit or mixing in a retrieve).


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## tortoise (Feb 5, 2012)

Arcticfox said:


> This video is pretty amazing  Could you give more explanation on what you are doing and why?
> 
> I like to play tug with Tesla too, but generally with no goals in mind, other than teaching "drop it" when she was younger. I see it can be a really useful tool for plenty of other things now, but I don't really know what to do with it. I'd also love to get her more addicted to tug. She likes the game now, but isn't really super excited about it, same with fetch. She's more food motivated than toy motivated I guess, and I'm ok with that. But it'd be nice to get her really tug motivated as well, since I'm thinking about starting agility with her soon.


Let her pick her favorite tug toy. Most dogs go for braided fleece - it is soft and easy to hold on to. Some dogs like jute, leather, burlap, rope. A ball-on-a-string is an awesome tug toy / prey object.

Tease her with the tug toy for 5 seconds and whip it away. (quickly snatch it up and hide it from sight). Frustration builds drive - as long as there is enough success (reward, winning the tug) to maintain the drive.

Tug play should only last 2 - 3 minutes, tops. YOU MUST STOP BEFORE YOUR DOG WANTS TO STOP. I made the rookie mistake of playing too long. Look at the end of the vidoe - he is losing drive and I am trying to build it up to end on a high note. Major oops!


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## waltersmom (Sep 8, 2012)

Thanks sooooo much for the video, it really helped. Walter is a natural at interacting with me. out of the blue he will bring one of his tug toys and wiggle inbetween my knees almost begging for a tug game. I usually tire out before he does, at five months he is really high energy and craves all kinds of play. I think I have found a large area that is fenced in to take him to for some off leash exercise and some fetch.


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## MzChristine (Aug 30, 2012)

The stopping before the dog wants to stop part is tricky; Casper is just learning how much fun tug is and has a much shorter interest span then our dog Max. I have to be really alert to make sure I leave him wanting more!


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