Tunnel and Tug (Patreon)

In this video I'm working on being able to have Denver go through the tunnel with a little less help/setup from me than the first time we worked on it where I had to really bend down and coax him through. We're also working on putting a known cue (sit) between releasing the toy and grabbing it again. This is the start of being able to reinforce obedience behaviors toy play, along with impulse control around the toy. Finally, when I'm happy with the pattern of him re-gripping when asked, I start introducing the cue "strike" vs. my generic cue of "get it". Strike will mean, bite the toy in front of you.

Also, check out my second rep where I thought I was just going to magically get the tunnel behavior for free, and I am humbled by my hubris LOL! I hope what you are taking from me pointing some of my mistakes is this: you can mess up as the trainer quite a bit, and your dog will still typically learn the thing. We're never going to be perfect, but we work to get better every time we train our dogs (and video our sessions so we can see how silly we are sometimes!).

Things of note: notice how I am constantly using the placement of the food (when I'm not screwing it up :)) to set the dog up for where I want him to start. Also, check how I finish the tug game with him by switching to a different toy so I'm not "taking" the tug away.

I included a nice rep from a session later in the day of him really starting to understand the tunnel cue.

Happy Training!