Tuesday May 22nd 2007 - home practice

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

I have a gut feeling (or perhaps a desperate hope? :-) that I may finally have found the trick for getting Walter to bring the regular ball! The idea popped into my head this weekend at the Trenton tournament watching a dog whose tug sends her too far over the top so she's rewarded by playing tug with the ball. Well, Walter loves to play fetch with tennis balls, and he enjoys tugging, so I put two and two together and decided to try putting away the treat ball; instead, his reward for taking the ball is we will play tug with it. So yesterday and again earlier today I grabbed some gloves and we played tug with a tennis ball away from the flyball equipment. Like any game of tug he enjoyed it; the hard part is figuring out how best for me to get a grip on the ball without getting my fingers dented by his teeth! This evening I put the normal ball in the unsprung hole and he was bringing the ball all the way to me, and he seemed to be having a lot more fun! The first few "turns" he cheated but then I backed him up all the way to the kitchen and he was doing the turn again, though still pausing mid-way. Can't wait for team practice to work on this some more.