And this is from today, when I was trying to do the "teeny tiny tugs" to build up Rigger's desire to actually tug. I think we have room for improvement, but I did find out some interesting things. First, I had a crash course in how to trim video! This is excerpts from a much longer video.
The first :15 is what usually happens. He's thrilled to chase the toy, grab it, and take it to ground, and then generally runs around like crazy with it. He did that several times, which got cut out. I believe, in my heart of hearts, that he would love to play keep away with me. He wants to be chased!
After several rounds of that, he brought me a different toy, "blue dog". I tried doing some teeny tiny tugs standing up, but he kept doing his other favorite play style: grab it, hit the ground, and roll over on his back and wiggle around. I'm thinking that, with other dogs, that might be an invitation to play bitey-face. If the wiggling around gets him to a toy, or a foot, he will chomp down on it. Not sure exactly how to interact with him in that situation. So, I decided to try something different and sat down for the rest of the play session.
Up to :42, he's sort of interested in playing. He's staying close to me, and interacting, but his energy level is very low. He's not really tugging, just holding the toy. At :42, he was distracted by a flying insect.
Around :56, I decided that tug wasn't being very engaging for him, so I decided to add in more movement. That got his interest! I'm not entirely sure where this falls on the toy play vs "personal play with a toy" scale. There wasn't much tugging. At 1:07, he takes the toy to the ground. At 1:28 he wins the toy and takes it away, but seemed to realize it was more fun to play with me than on his own. At 1:35, he brings it back for more interactive play. At 1:47, he does a modified version of the "roll over on your back to wrestle/bitey-face" game, only going on his side, possibly because of being between my legs at the time. Altogether, the session lasted around 17 minutes. We didn't do much tugging, but we had fun. I also tried something entirely new, and laid on my back and pulled the toy over me, which he seemed to enjoy. And I do have a better tug toy on order.
And after all of this, we had dinner, and THEN we went for a walk at Central Park. (After Pixie had her walk. When my trainer warned me that having two dogs was much more work than having one, she wasn't joking!) I decided to do this walk on the waist leash, hands-free, to see where I was at with the loose-leash walking. We have room for improvement, but it was generally good. I let him switch sides too much, which becomes really noticeable when the leash is wrapping around your legs! But he did reasonably good at listening to verbal commands, and didn't try to ski me anywhere. And we watched people launching some sort of flying toy that glowed. Highly reinforced, since it was sort of like fireworks without the bangs.
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