# Dog Brain



## julianyway (Oct 8, 2013)

Hi everybody, I am new to the forum but have really been enjoying reading here. 

My new toy poodle, Seven, is just as smart as I was hoping and expecting; even though she is a bit of a mutt poodle with no pedigree and a white paw and chest, she is definitely a poodle and just fine with me. I live in an apartment in a third-floor walkup in Cambodia, so there is no way we are going outside to pee! Seven picked up on the pee-pads in about three rather stressful days (for me, because I had to watch her all the time). It was never a matter of punishing her or even rewarding her, but at 8 weeks she at first seemed to have no clue what to do, then miraculously caught on, and then would occasionally forget. At about 15 weeks now, she just matter-of-factly goes to a pad and looks sort of bemused if I reward her for it. She doesn't seem to think of it as a reward-worthy kind of activity. She is sort of like my two cats that way. 

She seems to have a sort of funny mental dichotomy between concepts of work and play. For "commands", I just reward her with puppy kibble; she is such a small dog that she will explode if she eats too much, and I figured that she might as well work for food. She thinks this is fine. (Of course she gets sprinkles of food all day, as well as some treats, and all the cat food she can steal, so she is in no danger of starving.) Over the first week or so, she learned to sit, stay, down and come. (She was only 8 weeks old when I got her.) She absolutely LOVES training time, and will even stop chasing cats to work for kibble! (She actually comes away from chasing a cat when I say "come"!) I am phasing out some of the food now that she knows what things mean, but she still gets something every three commands or so. 

We play with toys also, but in her mind it is a totally different ballgame (ha ha) ... if we have been working on commands and I introduce a toy, she looks at it like it is from Mars. I tried to get her to understand that "toy" meant a toy, but although she could sit stay down come etc., she looked at ME like I was from Mars when the toy was presented. If we do happen to be playing with a toy, she will drop the toy and come and do the commands, but it is obvious that she is switching gears mentally. She is kind of an Academic type, I guess. 

After much playing with toys and then on other occasions letting her get bored and going, "Toy, get toy, bring toy!!!" she has finally started bringing me a toy (she will bring any of her toys), after which we play tug and when I eventually get it from her (she loses her grip), I throw it and she brings it back for more tug. I really wanted her to fetch, so I have encouraged her to bring things back by playing tug when she brings something. She runs and gets the toy, sometimes does poodle-run around the room, then hurls herself at me with toy in mouth. (Good thing she isn't bigger...) Still, in her mind, this is a completely different activity, much less Serious, than Working for Treats. 

When she fetches, we just play tug when she gets back with the toy. I have not even tried yet to get her to drop or give me the toy, because I don't want to mess it up. When she does something outrageously horrible like chew the bookcase or try to eat cat-poo (or snap at my legs when I'm walking), I scream bloody murder, and she gets it, and then we change the subject. But I don't want to even get into that kind of thing with something fun like fetch. She learns something new every day in terms of tricks and commands, but "toy" seems to be in a completely different category for her. I have seen advice from people, saying to offer the dog food in exchange for the toy, but this just makes her go cross-eyed. She either wants to play or work for treats, and play (like peeing on the pee-pad) has nothing to do with treats. 

So here (at last!) is my question... what is your advice for gently transitioning her into actually giving me the toy so I can throw it again? I want to keep it fun for Seven, who is a willing little soul... but I can also see that she could easily become stubborn, and I would like to avoid any and all battles of will! I think maybe that offering another toy for a toy might work, but what command to use, how and when to introduce it? 

Thanks for listening! I really love this forum!

Julie


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

Loved reading your story!
For giving me the toy, exchanging the toy for a new one always worked for me. But maybe you need to separate tug and fetch, because the goal of tug is to keep the toy away from you, isn't it? When the whole game is about fetch, then giving the toy back to you means it will be thrown again sooner.


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## julianyway (Oct 8, 2013)

I guess I will try switching toys... I think she actually enjoys fetching more than tugging but doesn't know how or why to let go. I don't have a clicker, but with food I generally give it right away to avoid confusion. Since she isn't into food when it comes to toys, it's hard to know what to say or exactly when to say it with this toy-switch thing. (I feel a bit stupid here because I am not particularly into formal dog training and with such a smart dog and willing human I'm sure we can work it out....) : 

.... oh by the way... she always tugs the toy TOWARDS me. LOL


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

The swapsies game is the way to go. Look, I have something even better for you if you give me what you already have will get the point across. You should also give back the original toy sometimes and just show that giving something up is the point, since you end up giving it right back.


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