Clean Run - February 2015 - 20

liant instructor and a master at building
drive in a dog. Her first dog was an
unmotivated West Highland White
Terrier that walked or trotted around
the course. Stacy learned how to build
drive so well that he turned into a speed
demon on course. My husband Mel
learned how to handle an agility dog
running him. One of the many things
Stacy has taught me is that if the dog is
not interested in the reward you are offering, then it is not much of a reward!

One of the things we love to do for our
dogs is throw a ball. Many folks will tell
you that it is a no-no and can be dangerous, but our dogs love it and so do we.
Though you must be careful and know
your dogs! We would throw the ball for
them and they would all chase it, except
Pankies. She would chase our Border
Collie, Crush, instead. While the rest of
them ran as hard as they could after the
ball, Pankies ran as hard as she could
after Crush and screamed then entire
time she chased.

Some dogs come out loving to tug and
that makes our job much easier. We
have several like that. Others may prefer a ball or other toy you can snake or
throw. Some love the Rip N Tug Lotus
Balls that you can load with treats. You
need to experiment and find which reward drives your dog over the top. I still
believe tugging is the best if your dog
wants to tug and your back can stand
the strain. I use a ball because my dog
prefers it and my back is shot.

Pankies loves chasing Crush more
than anything else.

Barque loves tugging.
© nInaSPHotoGraPHY
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Then, when she was about a year or so
old, she brought me the ball and put it
in my hand! I couldn't believe my eyes. I
had done nothing since she was a puppy
to try to get her to interact with the ball.
I had given up because every time I had
tried to get her interested in the ball, she
acted as though I wanted to kill her with
it. It had to be on her terms in her time.
She is an extreme case, but she taught
me an enormous lesson. Let the dog develop a love for the toy away from training before introducing it as a reward

I was brainwashed to think that only
tugging was a good enough reward
for agility. Then the universe sent me
Pankies. There was no tugging, no ball
interest, and no toy interaction with
her. No matter how hard I tried, the
only thing I managed to do was make
the tug an aversive for her. She not only
didn't want to tug, she hated the sight
of the tug toy. I had used a ball with
her mother, but Pankies didn't have any
interest in that either. I put much too
much pressure on her and myself in the
beginning trying to get her to play with
toys or to tug. Finally, I just gave up and
used food when I could. I knew that
food would not give me the drive and

for building behaviors. Pankies has also
taught me many other things, but that
one was huge.

If I go to work and they tell me they are
going to pay me in Brussels sprouts (I hate
Brussels sprouts!) I would be looking for
a new job. If, however, they oﬀer to pay
me $1,000 an hour, I am going to love that
work! No matter how much they tried to
convince me that I will learn to love those
Brussels sprouts, I will never like them
and will end up resenting the job.

flexibility I needed to train her up for
agility distance work, but I had to start
someplace.

Pankies loves her ball.

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Clean Run | February 15

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Clean Run - February 2015

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