Starting Reverse Luring with Denver (Chin Rest) (Patreon)

All of our work with the open bowls of food, clamshell game, and the cooperative care have been a long game to be able to start the reverse luring training concept with Denver. If you haven't watched my Patreon video on reverse luring, stop what you're doing and watch this one before continuing with this post.

Denver's a bit of chompy boy with certain objects. In the video of his Advanced Trick Dog title, he put a couple good marks in my AAA card LOL (which is why I didn't use a credit card!). To avoid training that into my retrieve, it's about time I start working towards a shaped retrieve as Denver is almost done getting all of his adult teeth in.

Note: Avoid training a shaped retrieve while a puppy is still teething!

The first step of my shaped retrieve is a hold because I generally backchain the retrieve, shaping the hold first (though I will sometimes shape it from the ground depending on the dog - or sometimes I will work both ends in different sessions at the same time - training is a science and also an art lol!).

I like to teach stillness with the retrieve item with a chin rest, so dog takes object, then cue the chin rest, now I have stillness. So, I set about training the chin rest. Once I had my chin rest, I needed to start teaching the concept of reverse luring to Denver. The first session is in the clip above.

Basically, my hand opens when Denver is doing the desired and cued behavior (chin resting on object). It's like a keep going cue. If his chin lifts, the hand closes. Chin goes back down, hand opens again. Then I mark and reward. This is an easy way to build duration in many dogs once they understand the concept.

Notice that I am teaching the concept of reverse luring in a completely different context than retrieving. I want him to fully understand reverse luring before involving any retrieving object for the hold.

Also, yes, this is a super short session. That's because I'm not totally in love with my physical setup, but I was just using what I had available.

Anyways, this is my current gameplan for reduced chompiness. We'll see how it goes and we can always shift the plan if it's not the right one for Denver.

Happy Training!

(and be sure to watch my retrieve series if you want to see how I generally train a retrieve, as I'll be showing you that here as we go along)