Category: Advanced Stuff ¤
  Author: Shirley Chong ¤
   Title: Toys as Primary Reinforcers ¤

   Donna Fefee asks about using toys as a PR.
   I've done this with some success (stunning success if you can 
count sheep as toys! <G>). Following is what works for me (but I'm no 
expert).
   The first step is to teach the dog to be crazy about toys apart 
from training. This may seem obvious, but I have seen non-toy 
motivated dogs. If I were dealing with a dog that never played with 
toys, I'd make toys an important part of his/her life. There would be 
a toy draped over the food dish before meals, so the dog has to nudge 
it aside to get to the food. I would spend a lot of time with fuzzy 
toys, petting, stroking, playing and IGNORING my dog. I'd feed that 
toy goodies! I would associate the toy with other events the dog 
enjoys--for instance, we're about to go for a walk, so I wave the toy 
around when the dog is excited, toss it through the door and then go 
(don't let the dog investigate the toy). If we're about to get into 
the car, wave the toy around, then into the car. I'd experiment with 
different toys, including things like lengths of garden hose, knotted-
up old socks, foxtails, fake fur snakes, squeekies, Koosh balls, etc. 
I'd also experiment with rubbing the toy with various foods--not 
leaving any food on the toy but leaving a scent. If this is a jealous 
sort of dog, rubbing it on another dog's body sometimes piques them. 
Almost ALL dogs will be very interested in something that has been 
rubbed on a baby puppy's body (baby meaning a puppy less than about 
ten weeks old--the younger the better).
   With toys, I think it's important to be unpredictable. Sometimes 
the toy comes out for no reason at all, sometimes the toy comes out 
after a prolonged period of work. Having ice cream only for dessert 
works to a certain extent--IF the person already has an appetite for 
ice cream. First the appetite has to be developed, THEN it can be 
used for a treat. The appetite for ice cream can be increased by 
occasionally allowing it at other times, too.
   When using the toy as PR, it's important to remove it while the 
trainee still wants to play. In a sense, it's a tease--they get to 
play a little bit and then you take it away while they still want 
more. Long before I learned anything about dogs, I turned my first 
GSD puppy, Fergie, into a Frisbee maniac by exactly this method. 
First I got her interested in it (at an early age--she was dragging 
that Frisbee around when it was taller than she was!). Then we played 
short games of Frisbee but because I was concerned about 
overstressing her joints, the games always ended long before she 
wanted them to. By the time she was an adult, she was good for 2-3 
hours of Frisbee in cold weather. In hot weather, she would play 
until her tongue was a foot long and PURPLE--she never wanted to quit.
 Literally. Never in her whole life did we ever play Frisbee long 
enough to suit her. She learned what the words Frisbee, flying disc, 
plastic round thing, f-r-i-s-b-e-e, the game, the thing, disky, f-
word, d-word, etc, meant--she'd figure it out, go nuts and then we'd 
have to think up another synonym for the darn thing.
   For dogs that were over-inhibited about biting when they were 
puppies, it can help to put the toy on a string, so that the trainer 
can make it move but the trainer's hands are far from the actual toy. 
Many high prey drive dogs will actually stalk a toy in much the same 
way a cat will if it's on a string (which may not be very visible to 
the dog).
   For ultra-submissive dogs, sometimes what works best is to lie 
prone on the ground with the toy. Let the dog do whatever they want. 
Make weird squeaky noises, whimper, whisper secrets to the ground, 
etc. Once the dog is playing with you, introduce the toy.

M. Shirley Chong
The Well Mannered Dog