Tag Archives: Tugging

Teddy hates toys, loves trash

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As part of our training, we’re encouraged, strongly, to get our dogs to play tug with us. I know teddys_bottlethat a few years ago there was some nonsense about playing tug with your dog being a bad thing, but it’s not. Playing tug is terrific on many levels – it’s good exercise for the dog, it encourages interaction with you, you’re the source of the fun, and your dog learns to listen to you even when he’s all excited in the middle of a game.

That’s the theory, anyway. And I’ve wrestled with it with Teddy since the day I got him. Teddy has no interest, whatsoever, in toys. Never has picked up a dog toy of his own volition. Never.

I’ve dealt with this before – Dax, my first French Bulldog, wasn’t a fan of toys when we started training in agility. She certainly wouldn’t play tug, and if she did, it was never in public. But she was very, very, highly, incredibly food-motivated and she loved vegetables. So I started tugging with her with a limp celery stalk. It was messy, we went through a lot of celery, but it worked. Eventually Dax was a tugging machine and loved to play tug with anything, anywhere.

Teddy, not so much. Couldn’t care less about celery. It’s been a struggle. The compromise I’ve found is to stick a tiny bit of cheese in the toe of a sock. He’ll destroy the sock to get to the cheese, so we call it play.

The only thing I’ve ever found that he absolutely adores, and actually considers a toy is the empty bottles from my contact lens solutions. There’s something about the texture of those particular bottles that floats his boat. They’re practically impossible to tug with, he destroys them after five minutes, and if I do throw them, Teddy will chase the bottle. He just won’t bring it back.

Dog training is constantly a matter of improvising, adapting, and re-jiggering what works. Teddy is a puzzler I’ll keep working on.

Getting my stick-in-the-mud to play

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You know the old adage about the cobbler’s children having no shoes? Well, our case isn’t quiteTeddy in agility as bad as that – our dogs have all the “stuff” they need. But despite having a wealth of toys to choose among – Teddy doesn’t play with toys. He just doesn’t. Never has.

For most dogs, it probably wouldn’t be an issue. But as a firm believer that “work is play” and “play is work” in obedience/rally/agility training – it’s a source of frustration for me. Teddy would rather lie down and chew on a bone than join in the games of fetch/tug/wrestle with me and the other dogs. He’ll calmly watch a ball roll by and pretend it doesn’t exist.

The benefits of play/training are many – it helps build the bond with your dog, it helps him get focused on you, it heightens his energy level, it teaches him to think even while excited. But despite all the toys I’ve tried in the last five years (Teddy’s whole life), the only thing he really adores is food. Cheese, to be specific. Which he can’t eat too much of, because it upsets his stomach. It’s never easy.

So I’ve gotten creative in getting Teddy “hyped up” for training. I stick a quarter of a stick of string cheese in a sock and tie a knot in it. I’ve tried all the dog toys with pouches, and his French Bulldog (emphasis on the bulldog) jaw mows through all of them in minutes. So I buy a huge pack of cheap men’s work socks and go through about three of them per one hour class.

It’s not the first time I’ve had to get creative getting my dog to tug with me. My first Frenchie, Dax, was also a non-tugger at first. Her major turn-ons included vegetables, so I was the weird one in agility class toting the wilted celery stalks – the only thing I could get her to tug on, at first. Over time we were able to switch to actual, real tug toys and Dax became a champion tugger. But our instructor still tells our story. Our little piece of agility class immortality.