Week 3 with Hannah, teaching trade and tug

 I am making no secret that I am making things up as we go along.  The first thing I wanted to help with was startle reflex.  I want to put a lot of great experiences  in the behavior bank. Our hope is  that when Hannah  is startled, she won't act defensively with her teeth.  When Hannah feels the stomping vibration of someone approaching, she is happy and knows what to expect.
She knows something is coming and it will be pleasant.

She learned sit, auto sit and down and really is doing amazing with all that.

This past week my normal syllabus called for recall.  Hmm. How exactly is that going to work?  Mom came this week and she told me that the dog is never far from them and they don't expect her to come.
In the yard, she is on a 30 foot line.
We did work out a cue for come. It involved putting food in the luring hand, and starting mid way at her body and basically swiping her all the to her head, and then walking backwards and then feeding. That worked great.

After Hannah worked for a while, I asked if she played with toys and the answer was a resounding YES, so I gave her this great fleece toy with a tennis ball built in. Well, I have to say I was surprised at how totally normal, young dog acting she was, and I knew right there they next thing that she needed to learn was DROP IT , and proper tooth play.  She was very gentle with her mouth and didn't once get me by accident.  This was the first thing that I taught, that except for not adding a verbal cue, I taught it the exact way I do all my dogs.

Give the toy, tug tug tug then put your hand with food at the nose and wait for them to drop it. Feed and then repeat the game.  This will teach her that it is play when the toy is moving, and time to give it up when we stop the motion. She nailed it.  I think you can see from the photos below that she really did play hard!
Next week we will define take and drop a bit clearer.
All and all I could not be happier with her .

I was surprised at how much Hannah loved to play! 

She is tugging hard here. Tugging won't make her aggressive. Hannah like all dogs  is going to use her teeth anyway,so best to teach her the rules in a fun way.

Drop it! Good girl!
When we teach the trade up game, the dog gets something of greater value than what they are playing with and then they get the prize back.