A bit of training advice please........

My 13 month old GSD is a tad possessive with his ball.

I am happy with most aspects of his training; sit, stay, paw, down etc etc, however, when I throw his ball for him, he fetches and comes back to me but won't drop it!

He tries to entice you into a tug of war which obviously is more fun for him that the retrieving aspect!

You have to actually wrench the ball from him in order to throw it again.

I've used treats to entice him to drop the ball, which work to an extent, but he always tries to snatch the ball as you reach for it.

Is this possesiveness a dominance thing?

Any ideas how I can make him drop the ball and wait for me to pick it up?

Ideally, I'd like to train him to sit and stay while I throw the ball and then give him the command to fetch, however as soon as he sees my hand reaching back to throw he is off!

Thanks in advance.

well, as long as he likes to chase the ball, i might be able to give you some suggestions.  lots of dogs like to play chase or tug of war, refusing to drop the ball, thiinking this is a fun game.  if he wants you to throw it so badly, but won't drop it, ask him to drop and when he doesn't, just walk away.  ignore him till he will drop it in front of you. 

i have a dog that is totally obsessed with fetching his tenis ball.  from the break of day till eve, he is begging me to do it.  i trained hiim to sit and wait till i give the "okay" command.  i did this by starting slowly.....in the house.  i would tell him to sit  and hold his colar while saying stay.  i'd throw the ball just a little ways and still holding his colar, would say "stay".  then, when the ball stoped rolling, i'd say "okay".....and he would go after it.  it took a long time to teach him this because he wants so badly to get the ball, but he did learn.  and now, he is so good at it, i can throw it quite a distance outside and have him wait till i say okay before he chases after it.  of course, in order to get this far, your dog must understand the concept of dropping the ball.  does he know the drop command?  if not, just put the ball in his mouth and then grab it out, saying drop each time.  if he does know the command, just ignore him till he drops.  i know a golden retriever who loves to play fetch, but she does this refusal to drop 'game'.  i say drop it molly and when she won't, i just walk away a little.  i won't play her game.  eventually she comes and drops the ball infront of me, because ultimately, she wants to chase it.  hope these suggestions help.  good luck.

Sounds as if he is having fun getting him to chase you - many dogs are like this including mine! :)

There are probably several ways to tackle this; i used a clicker and taught my girl to "Bring" (so i take the ball from her mouth) and "Drop" (so she drops it). I started off at home with a toy she would like but not quite as exciting as the ball. It may be necessary to use a long line at first so that you can gently reel the dog in, and also use really nice tasty treats for exchanging the toy for a treat...maybe consider liver or chicken.

Once the dropping or bringing behaviour is reliable, you can try without the long lead and after that perhaps venture out into the garden. If the dog returns to NOT dropping it, say "too bad" (which he will eventually come to understand) and end the game for about 3 minutes. Walk off and leave him alone.

If when you start training this he just won't drop the ball, you can try 2 things: wait him out and when he drops it, click and treat or praise and treat etc. (Don't lunge forward and grab the ball straight away, concentrate more on getting him to drop it than you actually getting it...). Of course his ultimate reward may be chasing the ball so you can use that as a reward :)

Make it a rule that if he doesn't drop the ball, the game ends and he has no fun. If he does drop it, he gets lots of fun and chasing and treats. Eventually he should just always drop the ball and you won't need to use food rewards. You'll need to experiment a bit to see if the best reward for him is liver etc or a thrown ball and use that as the reward after the initial teaching....i tend to use food for training, and toys for motivation :)

Hth - it's not easy explaining over the net sometimes!

Lindsay
X

Argh the dreaded D word

Your dog is not trying to dominant you he wants you to play with him as a dog. My two collies both love playing with balls(well all toys)& often play tug of war with a tennis ball ;)

Try using two bells & don't throw the second until the first is dropped, use a leave or drop command as he is dropping the first ball

I never try to use a pure play toy as a training aid, my dogs toys are just that something to play with & balls are not good to teach retrieving skills with on a formal basis. yes my dogs would wait until I threw the ball before retrieving it & sit & give it up to my hand, but I don't think that would be as much fun to them. I use a bite bar(rolled hessian glued together which can be used to start manwork training on hence the name) or a tennis ball material bar(can't remember the name for them but they float) that can be used to teach the rertieve. Why ? because when you throw them them stop moving usually when they hit the ground unlike a ball which rolls on encouraging the dog to run after it & also you can get hold of them without having to touch the dogs mouth so can be used as a tuggy in the early stages of teaching retrieve on a more formal basis

Hi talizman how great that you have a dog that is toy obsessed it makes training so much easier when they have this play drive.

With retrieve obsessed dogs the "object" can become the source of competition if we are not careful and so it is important that they realise that fetching the toy is contingent on letting it go first :D

One of the ways that you can encourage the release of a toy is to tease the dog with food whilst it is still in its mouth, to get the food the dog will drop the toy and then you can throw the food away from you and the dog and pick up the toy and/or throw the food and then let him pick it up again; once this is firmly established you can then introduce either a body or voice cue so that the dog will give up anything on command.

A dog cannot play tug of war if there is nothing to tug against and so if, for example one is using a "ragger" you just stop pulling and allow it to go dead, the same applies with a ball.  If you get into the competitive situation the behaviour that you are trying to eliminate just gets stronger ie he will pull harder! :)

If you want to teach your dog to wait for a command the easiest and most effective way is to back chain it, eg sit in a chair with the dog in the "present" with his toy and take it off him, then put it on the floor ready to pick it up the moment the bottom leaves the ground so to speak and then throw it and eventually you will be able to phase in commands.  If the dog is very quick it can help to have another person who will pick up the toy if he breaks so that he will soon put 2 + 2 together and not move until told; this "hands off" approach teaches the dog self control and not to fight against you holding him.

Hope that helps...................

I

Some excellent suggestions folks, thanks. :)

I'll give them a go. :)

One way is to gently take hold of the ball, on either side of the dog's mouth, and wait.  Say nothing until you feel a slight easing off on the part of the dog, (his jaws will tire)  then say 'good boy' and wait until he eases off further again repeating the praise for each step towards releasing his hold your dog makes.  As soon as he completely releases or you can take it without force say your chosen command word eg 'out' or 'give' and give lots of praise.  Immediately give your dog his ball back.  Repeat often. 

Sometimes the dog just doesn't understand what you want of him and until he understands that you want him to give you the ball, and that you will give it back, or that play continues, you're on a hiding to nowhere.

Yet another suggestion, as if you haven't enough already, ;)

When he comes back to you crouch down and just stroke, pet and praise him and make no attempt to take the ball or even acknowledge it.  If/when he drops it, point to it and tell him to pick it up again which he will as soon as you move your hand towards it.  Repeat this until he doesn't want to pick it up when you touch it with your finger.  Then pick it up and throw it and repeat the whole process again.

I can't wait to try these suggestions on Oscar ~ he NEVER drops the ball so I end up tricking him by pretending to throw another ball.

Rachel, what happens if you have two balls? When Oscar comes back with one, tease him with the other until he drops the ball he has and then reward with the ball you already have. This worked to a point with mine. You have to make sure the balls are of equal value to them though.
(By the way, i have tried and tested Sally's suggestion too, and its working like a charm!!an actually throw a ball more than once now! ;-) )

Yeah....that's basically how it worked but he wouldn't drop the ball until he saw the second ball and when I threw the second ball he'd sometimes grab the first ball and take that with him! I tried Suzieques technique but I got bored before Oscar did! :D
but I've had some success with Sally's method. We'll try again tomorrow :)

Yes thats my problem, i'm rather impatient and meg is stubborn!

Hi Rachelandoscar

Yes, this method does require a bit of patience but, if like me, it was the last resort patience was all I had.

I had tried the 2 ball method and failed.  If my dog had a toy, that was the one he wanted to play with and offering an alternative did not work.

I also tried the offering a titbit method and this did not work either - he would drop the ball, snatch the treat (something he did not normally do so I was creating a bad habit!) and grab the ball before I could.  It all got quite competitive.

Getting him to give it up of his own volition and realising he got it back was the only one that worked for us.    Hope you find one that works for you!  

Hi Suzieque,
I hope you don't think I was critisising your method - I wasn't - just saying that it didn't work for me but anything is worth a try.
I had the same problem as you using titbits too so we stopped doing that one too.
It's trial and error really - like you said...finding what works for you and your dog.
Good luck with it......Oscar and me have still got a long way to go.....but we'll get there in the end ......I hope!
Rachel :)

Hi Rachel

No, I didn't take your reply as critisism - just explaining that that mehod was my last resort having tried everything else and failed!!

Like you say, you have to find a method that works for you and your dog.  Funnily enough, I never had a problem with any of my other dogs - just this one - it took him ages to realise what I wanted but he got there in the end.