Building Tug Drive

It's down time, no tournaments for awhile. Time for bruises and oopsies to heal and work on stuff for next season.

One of my big frustrations with my two dogs is neither of them have really boffo tug drive. They're both ball crazy. While that means I don't deal with dropped balls, they loose speed on the run back because nothing really draws them.

Don't get me wrong, I run and scream and wave things. But, Spoiled One comes back and still has to be told "drop it" to drop the ball and then "get it" to get the tug. Once he grabs the tug, he enjoys it. The blasted dog wears me out. Flyball is a wonderful work out program. Crouch down. Hold quivering, bouncing dog, scream "go" and run from a crouch to the start line, scream the dog's name, run back like zombies are chasing you and then swing a 60lb weight around while play growling 20 or 30 times and, well, I get a smidgy winded.

But, I want him to drive back for the tug. I've experimented with a lot of things. Running, tugging, switching back and forth between tug and ball, treating for tugging, letting him win, giving up and using a ball. I still want him to want the tug more. So, each evening we're doing the tugging game. It makes me wish I had a Papillion, or at least a 30lb border collie instead of a 60lb shepherd mix.

Weasel is even more of a problem. The little muffin loves the tug at home. I swing her around, and she growls and snarls and has a ball. Last night, she was trying to switch. She started dropping the tug and looking up at the feathers on a stick cat toy on top of the tv stand. So, being the loving, patient owner I am, I put her out and played with Spoiled One. She stayed focused on the tug tonight, even did a little bit of picking it back up after I let her win and inviting more play. You could just see her carefully ignoring the cat toy.

So, that's this week's regimen. Tug, tug, tug. All games are tug. Tug is the source of all fun. We'll see.