Clever Dog Training Tip

While watching youtube videos the other day I came across Kyra Sundance and her weimeraner Chalcy. Chalcy has a whole string of creative tricks she can do and has been on several TV shows. She had this creative trick for teaching your dog to fetch by taking a tennis ball and cutting it so that you could place treats inside. The idea is that the only way for the dog to get the treat would be to bring the ball back.

I decided to try the idea with a small plastic ball we had. I placed a slit in it and put pieces of cheese inside. I used the smaller ball thinking that I could teach Daisy to bring it back. She showed no interest in the ball but I knew Tanner would. I had to sort of talk him through it and show him that I was putting the cheese in the ball. I would throw the ball and then he would try to run pass me so that he could take the ball and chew on it. He knew the cheese was in the ball and he didn't mind trying to destroy the ball just to get the cheese.

I had to take the ball out of his mouth and then show him the treat was coming out of the ball and that was the only way he was going to get the treat. He tried once to just chew the ball until he got the treat but I took it from without any reward.