Session 1: The first was eye contact and attention. I go into this game in detail here, if you're interested. He forgot how to play this game in the 6 months that he's been gone, but that's okay, he picked it up again pretty quickly. I wish I had a Go Pro cam so I could show you what it looks like from my angle! It's so cool to watch when they finally 'get' it.
He will play this with me inside for just about any type of food reward.
Session 2: I took Pont outside to try and recreate the eye contact game. I even upped the ante by warming smelly cut up hotdogs. *FAIL* Pont's attention span outdoors has never been great, but in the time since he last left here, it's gotten much, much worse. In the back yard on a regular leash and nylon collar, he will not acknowledge my presence in the least, and even hotdogs in front of his face are not enough to take his attention off of the leaf across the yard that may or may not be a squirrel or bird or rabbit. If I pull on him and raise my voice, I'll get through to him enough to get him to sit, but he will be facing away from me, refusing to take his eyes off the prize.
What kind of dog won't take hotdogs?!?! The DuPont kind, apparently.
Session 3: After feeling the complete failure of the last training session (which was really just him pulling me around the back yard) I took it back inside. All of the impulse work I'd put on Pont last winter was gone, so we worked on 'Leave It'. With a dog like DuPont, 'Leave It' is an important tool to have in your bag of tricks.
'Leave It' is taught like this: You set up the dog in front of you, treats in both hands. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor. I put a piece of hotdog from my right hand on my knee. As soon as he went for it, I snatched it back up. After several attempts like this, he's like 'WTF' and the next time I put it down, he pauses. 'YES!' I take the piece back up with my right hand and give him a treat from the left hand. **Never allow the dog to have what you are asking him to 'leave'. In the future if there is something that you actually need him to leave alone with this command you can't let him think that he can eventually have it. This is why I'm using two hands so he sees the difference. He never actually gets to have the piece that I am putting down for him to reject**
Once he is pausing with some duration, I begin to add the command 'Leave It' so he begins to associate.
Session 4: I brought out the tug toy. DuPont's most beloved toy in the world.
He won't give it up, so it was time to try working on some sort of toy release. I made him sit and wait before he could have it, then told him to 'Take'. He jumped and we got a good game of tug going. Then I stood up strait and relaxed and waited for him. I made myself and the game as boring as possible, I put hands on either side of his face on the rope and took more and more. Eventually, (it's a loooong eventually) he let's go. 'YES!' then I present the toy immediately and tell him to 'Take'. His reward for letting go of the toy is to get the toy right back. After a while, I'll require more duration between the release and the take, but for now, it's a huge thing for him to give that up. He sucks at giving up his stuff.
As an after thought, when I took the dogs outside to potty one last time last night, I grabbed the tug toy and hung it around my neck. I have never wanted to use the tug to train him because of how jazzed and over threshold he gets about it. But after watching him reject some of the best food rewards I could come up with in an outdoor situation (hotdogs, steak pieces, chicken pieces) it became pretty clear.
Sure enough, standing outside with Pont pulling me towards yet another potential bird/squirrel/rabbit I call his name and get nothing, then I swing the toy in front of his face. He launches himself at it. I can get him to respond to his name with it, I can get him to sit with it, he'll sit AND give me eye contact with it... It's a good thing. I finally found 'the thing' that will aid me in turning Pont into a regular dog. My hesitation comes in knowing there is a fine line in which I can't cross when using DuPont's prey drive to kill his prey drive.
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