Nancy Gyes' Making a "Food-Sock"
Nancy Gyes and Scud
ADCh, MX, AXJ, EAC, EJC, EGC, CDX
Is your dog crazy for treats, but unmotivated by toys during agility training? If so, combine the two with a great toy to use in your training. Take an old athletic sock and fill the toe with a fistsize piece of rollover, baked liver, beef tripe, or prime rib. Tie a string or rubber-band around the opening. Make the sock into the most exciting toy you and your dog have ever played with. The goal is to get the dog to play tug with you and your food-sock. If your dog in uninterested or you want them at more of a fever-pitch when playing, try some of these ideas.
Put your food-sock somewhere the dog can see it but not have access, like the top of the refrigerator, the mantle, hung from the ceiling with a string, etc. At the times of the day when your dog is most likely to be excited to see you and your sock, like when you first get up in the morning, at dinner time, when you come home from work, after a bath, etc. go to the"hideout" making a huge game of simply getting the sock out of its resting place. Play with it for a while yourself, giving it a name, like "special" (à la John Rogerson, the great English dog behaviorist and originator of this toy game) and make goo goo eyes and sounds over this sock. Be animated,toss it in the air, make it dance like a small animal around your shoulders, tie a string to it and make it jump around your legs, all the time trying to keep it away from your dog. After a few days of keepaway your dog should be spending an inordinate amount of time mooning over the sock's hideaway location, staring at it hopefully for hours, praying you'll come and get it down and tease them with it. Don't put it anywhere that your dog can reach and don't put it somewhere that you will be apt to correct the dog if they attempt to retrieve their heart's desire.
Once in a while. as you pass the sock's hideout, point it out to the dog, saying "do you want Special" and DON'T get it out. Expect claw marks on the wall and furniture if you put it just out of their reach, and this is a GOOD thing!. Once you have hit the desired pitch of frenzy, once in a while let them actually catch hold of this toy, and play some wild tug games. In the beginning don't control the play too much. Trick them to get it out of their mouth, pry open their jaws to remove it, or point to the floor anywhere and say "what's that?" When they look away and loosen their grip, say "I GOT IT!" and start the keep away game again. Ask them where "Special" is in that tone of voice that makes them go wild. Let them get a taste of the "innards" once in a while by making a huge deal over opening up the sock and letting them try to gnaw off a small hunk of the food while you hold the sock open, or palm a treat of the same variety as inside (give them the good stuff, no tricks!) and pretend to open it up once they understand the game.
Once your dog will play madly at home take "Special" outside, then down the street, then to the park, etc. Once they will play elsewhere away from home, take it to agility practice and use it like a ball or a target toy for send-aways, or at the end of a set of weave poles. Play with your dog just before the exercise. Hide it behind your back, have a friend take it without the dog seeing where it went, and magically produce it at the end of your run. Hide it in different places on your body, under your arm, down your trousers, inside your own sock, and let it magically fall out at VARIED times during practice, not just at the end of your run. Be interesting and creative with this toy. Let your dog chase it down and "KILL it." Remember to renew the food stuffings often so it won't spoil, or store it in the refrigerator part of the time. If you are doing a good job you will need to ask all your friends for their old socks, as your dog will begin to destroy them often.
Enjoy, courtesy of Nancy Gyes!! "Power Paws," 1997
