Want some new ideas you can use in your enrichment program? Then you won’t want to miss our talk with Jamie Popper, CPDT-KA from Blue-9 Pet Products and learn about some great foundation skills that will set the pups up for future fun. Jamie shares tips on teaching three fun dog skills anyone can do to help exercise the dogs (even on rainy days), and prepare dogs for future disc activities. It’s also a new way to play with toys to engage dogs and your team. These are not just games for young active dogs, be sure to watch our video to learn how to modify the game for senior and even tiny dogs. This is guaranteed to challenge your staff and elevate their dog management skills to the next level.
Advanced Enrichment Skills to Play with the Dogs
I'm Robin Bennett and I'm one of the co-founders of The Dog Gurus.
Susan is in the middle of my screen, which I'm assuming she's in the middle
of everyone's screen, and she's the other co-founder of The Dog Gurus.
And then we are super happy to have Jamie Popper from Blue-9
pet products who is also here.
Jamie, if you haven't seen her before Jamie has been on our Facebook Lives a few
times and she's spoken at our conferences and we just love Blue-9 pet products.
And so she's a, Jamie's a certified professional dog trainer as well.
And she's going to be here to today to talk about some fun foundation
exercises that we as The Dog Gurus have never, ever talked about before.
And they're just amazing, really easy, really fun exercises that you can
play and just add a little bit of a twist to your enrichment activities.
And if you have people, clients or dogs who might want to do disk, this is a great
foundation exercise for that as well.
So multipurpose.
But before we get started, I just want to say that Blue-9 pet products, right
before we went live, Jamie was like, how about if we give away some disks?
Because that's just how they roll.
So we are going to give away three disks while we are on the Facebook live today.
Jamie's doing her Vanna White impressions.
My best impersonation.
And the way that you are entered into our free random drawing for these
discs is just share this Facebook post over the next few minutes to share it.
And when you share it, learning about fun things to do with the dogs.
And we are in the middle of the Facebook live.
Hopefully I will remember to do this.
I have two people to remind me though, but in the middle of the Facebook live,
we'll just check the shares and we're just going to randomly pick three people
to win a free disc that are very cool.
So, do that now before we get started.
All right.
So we've lots of people.
Bri's here.
Tina's here.
Jamie's here.
Brooke's here.
Janique is here.
Thank you guys.
All for joining.
We're super happy to see you.
And Susan, what do you want to start off with?
Do you have any words you want to talk to before we bring in Jamie to start talking?
No, I think it's been a busy summer and I think this is a great time to
think about some new, fun things you can add to your repertoire of games.
It'll I think refresh your staff and the dogs to finish out
the summer with a lot of fun.
So I'm excited and think we needed a skill that Jamie gets started.
All right.
So Jamie, I know that we only have a limited amount of time and there's
a thousand things you could train.
So we talked a little bit about those three foundation exercises, and I'll
let you kick it off and then introduce the training videos that we have.
And we'll just go from there and feel free for those of you that
are tuning in to just ask any questions, put them in the comments
and we'll answer as many as we can.
Yes.
Awesome.
First off, just want to say thank you so much for having me on this Facebook live.
It's always fun to be able to share a little bit of the knowledge that I have to
inspire others to do more with their dogs.
So I'm incredibly excited about the opportunity.
As you and I were talking and brainstorming some ideas for this
and new activities that maybe people haven't started playing with our dogs
yet, I thought about how important it is for me and the relationship that
I build with my dogs, that we have some sort of communication system,
as it pertains to playing with toys.
I bet all of you guys that are listening to this Facebook
live can sympathize with me.
When it comes to that frustration that you feel when you throw a ball
and your dog just looks at you, like I'm not going to go get that.
Are you talking about what happened earlier today in my backyard?
Not throwing, I'm not throwing any names, Ranger out there at all, labrador
retriever that doesn't retrieve.
I was not going to throw you under the bus like that, Robin.
But for those of you guys that have joined us on this Facebook live, if you've
dealt with this, if you've dealt with the frustration of trying to play fetch with
your dog and either they play keep away, or they don't actually fetch the ball.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to put a laughing react on this video.
So just go find that, do a little laughing, react.
If you've dealt with the frustration of your dog, doesn't touch the
toy, they look at you or they grab that toy and they run away with it.
Or some, even more frustrating things when you try to take the toy away from
them, they play tug with you, or maybe they split the ball out at your feet.
But when you go to pick up the ball, they bite at it and maybe they get your hand.
That can be pretty painful.
So if you have dealt with that, I'm going to say, go ahead and give
oh, I can, I, can I only like this.
I was trying to do a little laughing react to, but oh, here we go.
If you hover over the like button, then you can hit that laughing react.
So that's what I want to see.
All right.
So it looks like there's a couple of people that are having that
same challenge, love that you guys are putting those little laughing
faces in the comments, too.
So sounds like you guys are dealing with that too.
What we're going to go through today is talking about how we can develop these
different games that we play with our dog, that's going to make it easier for
us to have a kind of rule structure as it pertains to playing fetch with our dogs.
Now, this video specifically about working with Frisbees, but you can
replace this with any toy that you want to, whether it's a tennis ball
or a tug toy that maybe you want to play a little bit of fetch with.
You can definitely enter change it.
The first thing that I like to teach my dog is how to engage with the toy.
And so that first skill is teaching them this game of switch, and we're
going to play a video so that you can see it in action, and then I'll
fill in any holes after you guys see what that game of switch looks like.
Robin, can you cue that up for us?
All right, this is all the tech stuff.
So I got to hide these people and I got to show this video.
It's Frisbee it's with your dog in order to train them the game of playing fetch
with it and bringing it back to you.
We're gonna give you three different skills to work on in
order to build your Frisbee game.
Now, when you're getting started with teaching Frisbee to your
dog, you'll want to make sure that you have dog safe Frisbees.
You can start off with canvas Frisbees like these, or
plastic Frisbees like these.
Now you want to make sure that they are built for dogs though.
Some hard plastic Frisbees are going to shatter when your dog bites them.
And that could obviously be dangerous so make sure that you're
starting off with disks that are built specifically for dogs.
Now, the first game that we're going to play is the game of switch.
We want to teach our dogs how to play tug with the Frisbee in our hands.
And switch between Frisbees.
What we're going to do is teach our dogs that whatever Frisbee we
have is the most exciting Frisbee for them to be engaging with.
That's going to help us teach two things.
One, bring the Frisbee back to me and then start to engage with the Frisbee that I
have and spit out the Frisbee that you have so that we can continue the game.
Now, the first step to this is obviously getting your dog engaged with the Frisbee.
I think she's going to be a Frisbee superstar.
She's all excited about them, and I don't have to do a whole lot.
But if your dog is just getting started with it, you may have to make your
Frisbees a little bit more exciting, drag them around, make some exciting noises
before you present the Frisbee to them.
Now, what I'm going to do is with her in front of me, I'm going
to ask her to play tag with one.
Get it.
We're going to play a little bit of tug, and I want her to stay really
excited, engaged with this toy before I tell her to switch and get this one.
Now, what I'm going to do is if she's playing really vigorous tug with this
one over here, and I cue her to go to the other one and she doesn't, I'm
going to hold my hand nice and still until she chooses to spit it out.
See how that works?
So if I'm moving it all around making it exciting she's going
to want to engage with it.
But if I want her to spit it out and I've asked her to spit it out, I'm just
going to make the Frisbee go still.
She's going to spit it out and then I'm ready to cue switch.
She goes to this one.
Switch.
Woo.
Use those teefurs.
Switch.
Good.
Okay.
Notice how I'm holding onto the Frisbee here.
I want to maintain control of them.
I don't want her to run off and have a game on her own.
Switch.
So I'm holding onto them here.
Once I'm confident that she has the game of switch down pat, then I can
start to incorporate in some rollers.
Ready switch.
Wait, get around.
She's going to chase after that roller, bring it back to me.
And when I cue that switch, she's going to attack this other disc.
Okay.
I'm going to grab a hold of this one.
Oh, this is what I want.
Get it.
Good girl, switch, get around.
Nice.
And what does this teaching her is to bring it all the way back and
then switch for the one that I have.
That's going to teach her to drop it.
Get around.
Bring.
So I'm only going to queue that switch when she's brought the
Frisbee back close enough to me that I can reach out and get it.
Nice.
Wow.
What a baby.
So I love that she's bringing it all the way back to me.
She's ready to engage in that game of playing tug with me as well.
So give the switch game a try with your dog today.
To me, she's ready to engage in that game of playing tug with me as well.
So give the switch game a try with your dog today.
All right, thanks.
Bringing everyone back.
Here we go.
Except for around.
Just be happy.
You're all back here.
That's all I'm again, hopefully that worked and everyone could see that.
That was so fun.
I especially like your sound effects.
Oh, I love using verbal cues inside of my training because it helps get
them all jazzed and hyped and excited.
And if I'm making noises and singing to my dog and they happened to do something that
I'm not looking for, then I can go quiet.
And they see that something's changed in the environment.
So if she got my hand or something like that, and I go quiet, she's going to know
that, Ooh, I should be doing something to make the cool sounds be happening.
So that's the game of switch.
I think that was in pretty good detail.
When we put the videos together specifically targeted for people
who were working on teaching some Frisbee foundation skills, but all
of the same principles apply if you are playing with other toys.
To modify this a little bit, if I was starting to work on teaching my dog
the game of fetch and I really wanted to use tennis balls, I might start
with tennis balls that are on a rope or rubber balls that are on a rope.
Start with that, so that I have something to hold onto in
order to play that game of tug.
It's really important to get that game of tug with our dog, because
what it says is that when you play with me, cool stuff happens.
They can chew on a ball all they want on their own.
They don't need a human to be involved in that process in order
for it to be fun for the dog, chewing on a ball is just self-satisfying.
Whereas playing tug with me is a lot more fun if I'm involved in it.
So that game of tug really takes two to tango so to speak.
Once we've gotten that game of switch with our dogs, if you want to
start to build in a little bit more drive, we teach that go around skill.
And that's when we ask our dogs to go around our body and then drive forward.
And what I mean by drive forward is really just power forward, accelerate forward.
They know that we're going to be throwing something out in front of them.
So before we've even thrown it, they're running out into the middle of the
field, looking for whatever it is that we're going to throw for them.
So if you're playing with something like Chuck It, this can make it
a little bit safer for the dogs because they're already out there.
And when the ball bounces, they're able to catch it in the air rather
than driving into it and they can hurt their shoulders or, get their mouths
all dirty by diving into the dirt.
We want them to pick it up on that bounce kind of thing.
So if you were playing Chuckit or with a tennis ball, you want them to grab
it when it bounces, that'll be a little bit safer and easier on their bodies.
So how we teach that go around behavior.
We have another video for that, unless you wanted to add anything
to the switch stuff Robin.
Yeah.
I was going to say for the switch, just as a reminder, I teach this game all the
time for any dog that like Jamie said to begin with, for those that you weren't
here before we showed the video, dogs that bring it back and maybe play chase games.
So they bring it, they don't bring it all the way to you or they
bring it back and won't drop it.
And so this is a great game.
If you've got dogs in your facility where you really want to get them
exercise, you throw the ball once or you throw the toy once they bring it back.
And then the game is over because you can get the toy back from them.
So this is a really good game to play with those dogs and teach that skill to them so
that you, your staff is not struggling to have fun, quote unquote, because the chase
game is only fun for one or two times.
Yeah.
Susan, do you have anything else you want to add before we go to the next video?
Nope.
I think it's great.
I want to do a quick reminder.
We are going to be giving away a couple of dogs safe Frisbees.
We're actually going to be giving away three of them during this Facebook live.
In order to enter for the giveaway, you must share this video right
now, hit that share button.
And you can say I'm learning a fun, new games to play
with my dog as your caption.
Or you can come up with whatever you want, but definitely put a caption on it.
So share that we're going to be giving away three of those.
Probably after we're done sharing the next video, we'll announce
a couple of those winners.
So if you're looking for some dogs sade Frisbees, we've got three of
them that we'll be giving away.
You can enter by hitting the share button and sharing this video.
Awesome.
All right.
So I'm going to go ahead and hide us all and mute us all again.
And we're going to show this video that shows you how to teach that
go around, which I do think makes your dog a lot safer when they're
playing this game, any dog that really has a lot of speed, especially.
So I'm going to do my little tech magic here.
I'm Jamie Popper with Blue-9 pet products, and this is my eight
month old Australian Cooley, Peak.
Here we are going to be showing you another game that you can
play with your dog in order to teach them the game of Frisbee.
Now, when we have our dog sitting in front of us, if we turn around
and throw our Frisbee, they're going to have a really hard time standing
up, turning around, building the acceleration in order to fetch that
Frisbee that we just threw for them.
You're going to have a really tough time being able to grab that disk.
Now, if we teach our dogs how to get around, and then we throw our Frisbee,
they are going to be powering straight towards where we're throwing that
disc, which means that they're going to have a much higher likelihood of
actually being able to grab that disk.
Now, what we're looking for here is we can teach this with Frisbees
if your dog already understands the game, or you can start off with food.
I'm going to demonstrate with Frisbees first and then I'll show
you how you can do it with food.
So starting off with my dog in front of me, I'm going to show her
one of the disks that I have, lure her around behind me, and then ask
her to power forward for a throw.
So I'm luring her here showing her this one and then tossing that one there.
Nice job.
All right.
So with her again, we'll do this in slow motion again.
I'm going to flash her with this disc, show her this one and lure her around.
Then I'm going to toss this one out in front and you can toss a
roller if you want to as well.
So showing her here and then roll right out in front.
So she's going to power forward.
All right.
Ready?
So show, throw roller.
Nice.
Let's go.
Nice work.
Very good.
Okay.
Drag around.
Throw.
Go baby.
Nice.
That's what I want.
That's what I want.
Awesome.
Now, if your dog doesn't quite understand this game with their Frisbees, yet
you can start it off with food.
And I typically recommend that.
So we're going to see if Peak, who's very excited about her frisbees,
can switch and go for food.
With the cookie at her nose.
I'm going to lure her.
Let's go.
Lure her around, behind, and then toss the cookie out in front.
And I'm looking for her to drive forward for that cookie.
Ready?
Get it.
Ready?
Nice work, baby.
Around behind my legs, switching to my other hand, tossing that food out.
What we're looking for is for her driving forward for it.
Once we've practiced that a few times with the food we're
ready to incorporate the discs.
Get around.
Go.
Nice.
Get around.
Nice job baby.
You ready?
Ready?
Ready?
Nice.
Good out.
Get around.
So give this Frisbee training game a try today.
All right.
That was awesome.
I love that game.
I think that game is super fun.
And again, I think that game for, especially for really fast, even for
more slow dogs, like my dog, it's just going to help them not twist
their body the wrong way when they're, when you're going to throw something.
Or a lot of times Ranger will actually try to watch me while I throw it.
So he'll start to run, but he's still looking at me and that's not the
best thing for their body either.
So Jamie says, our other Jamie, I've learned to make sure my
legs are closed on this one.
My Husky likes to take the short run arounds.
I love that.
That's funny.
Yeah.
Especially if you have a big dog, but that's an awesome game.
And I think that game does help to build that speed, which is, I think makes the
game more exciting for the dog as well.
So what other tips would you say anything else that you want to
add or Susan, if you have anything to add for that particular game?
Nope.
I'm going to save my questions to the end, but our viewers don't have to do that.
You can post questions cause Jamie would be happy to answer them.
And I think you don't have to be a dog trainer to play these games, right?
No.
If we go back to the beginning of this Live, what we were talking
about is, I want to develop a better relationship with my dog.
One of the ways that I do that is through like trick training and
obedience training and all of that.
But when I have the most fun with my dogs is when we're playing with toys.
When we're out in the backyard on a nice summer evening, it's nice and cool,
and we're just unwinding for the day.
The joy that my dogs and I can share together, playing a game
of Frisbee, playing a game of fetch, playing a game of tug.
Those are the best and the fondest memories that I have with my dogs, not
necessarily the puppy class that I went to, even though that builds that bond too.
And that's very important, the most joy comes from when we're
playing with toys together.
So you don't have to be a dog trainer.
You just have to be a dog owner that wants to smile and play with their dogs.
And I do think that, I think a lot of people have that intention.
Like they want to have that fun and that bond.
And then it's frustrating because the dog doesn't bring that to a back, or
the dog won't, doesn't have the desire to chase them and you can build all that.
And that's true with those dogs that come to your facility.
Where I know one of the stories that Susan and I talk about a lot is Debbie Oliver,
who used to work with some of her dogs.
And one of the games she taught a dog was to go around the barrel
racing and she taught this dog to do like a weave, a figure eight around
barrels that owner of that dog had never seen her dog do that things.
And Debbie talks about the fact that, that owner was like tearing
up when she saw the video of her dog doing that, because that's something
that she's always wanted to do, but just didn't know how to teach it.
So you definitely don't need to be a trainer for this.
Anybody can do this with dogs.
It's just about being exciting and making the game exciting
and then helping the dog.
We do have a couple of questions.
So Dana said, great tips shared in the video.
Some of the dogs I work with aren't that fast at learning.
So how many times did you try if they're just not getting it?
So I think it's all about breaking it down into small pieces and
finding a small little chunk that they can be successful at.
So maybe the first step is them just taking the toy out of your hand.
So you get them really excited about it and you present the
toy, the dog bites at it.
Even if they just nose at it, you let it fall to the ground.
And let them realize that they, their bodies can make
things happen to other objects.
So that sounds like, oh that's not very exciting, the dog just
like nosed it out of my hand.
That's not really that cool.
But that's just the baby building block to eventually getting a dog that
will take a toy out of your hand and then maybe play tug for half a second
before they pull it out of your hand.
And then maybe playing tag with that toy for five seconds before you let them win.
So when you break it down into the smallest chunk, I would say
that's going to be what's going to help set you up for success.
I would say try one level of criteria two or three times.
If the dog's not successful, make it easier.
If you're asking the dog to play tug with the toy and they just won't put their
teeth on it, see if you can get them to put their nose on it or their paw on it.
So make it just a teeny, tiny little sliver of the behavior
that you're looking for.
And I would say, keep trying.
Find something that the dog gets excited about.
What does this dog like to put his mouth on?
Is he chewing on wooden sticks?
That's not really that safe, but is there something that we might be
able to utilize, maybe something like a wooden dowel, that has the same
texture as wood, but it's much smoother.
So it's not going to have as many splinters that might
come off in the dog's mouth.
Can we start with something like that and then translate that to other
types of materials that the dog likes?
So really being a detective being very keen on observing that specific dog,
you'll start to learn what they like to put in their mouth and what might
be a safe object for them to play with.
The other thing that I have done with dogs that really don't like, don't have a
strong play drive is I try to take a toy.
And that only time they get that toy is when I'm going to
engage them with it as a game.
And so that toy becomes like this super special thing.
And for some dogs I've even played a game where I put that toy, like on top of
the refrigerator and occasionally for a week, I'll get the toy and play with it
myself,, and don't give it to the dog.
I'm like, this is like the greatest toy ever!
We've seen this withR anger.
Jamie will be in the backyard because she's at my house right now.
She's just in another room, but she's got her two dogs here.
So the she'll be out with her two dogs and my dog is like I don't
know anything about discs, so whatever I'm just going to watch.
But then after three or four throws, he'll run over and just want to grab the disk
because they're like, I want it because it seems to be a fun object.
And that's the same thing.
You're basically playing with the toy yourself and not giving
it to your dog for a week.
And you'll feel like a complete crazy person doing that in your house, but
just do that because then your dog is going to be like, I want that thing.
And so then you bring it down and you let them play with it just for a few minutes.
Let them chew on it, let them tug on it and then put it away and you
can build up that drive for that specific toy that way as well.
So that's a fun game to play with dogs as well.
Go ahead.
And we'll definitely take some time for all of the questions too, but another
thought that I have while we were talking about that is the way that you
present the toy or the way that you throw the toy has some value to it as well.
The last video we'll show you guys today is how to throw a roller.
And there's a big difference between throwing a Frisbee in a
way that the dog has to catch it in the air and throwing a roller.
Not a lot of dogs are bred to look at and chase things that are in the sky.
Think about it.
We have dogs that are bred for hunting rabbits or vermin.
Those are all on the ground.
We have dogs that are bred for herding, so they are chasing or moving cattle and
sheep and goats and chickens and ducks.
So these are all land bound animals.
Even when we start thinking about our sport our sporting
dogs or our hunting dogs.
It's not often that they're looking up into the sky.
They're flushing birds out of the brush for hunters to be able to then, hunt.
And same thing for ducks, they're not on land, they're in the water, but
they're still at eye level for our dog.
So for throwing this Frisbee and into the air, what animal, what dog breed has been
bred to chase something that's in the sky?
I can't think of it off the top of my head right now.
So if we're presenting our toys by throwing them through through the
air that makes that's not going to set our dogs up for success.
Whereas if we start to teach our dogs to chase after a ball, that's rolling
on the ground, or chase after a Frisbee ,that's rolling on the ground, we're
going to start utilizing the instincts that they already have to chase
after a sheep or chase after rabbits.
That's an instinct that they have already, so let's use that natural
prey drive is what they call it, in order to use it to our advantage in
order to set them up for success.
So learning how to throw a toy in a way that it's going to roll on the ground,
which you wouldn't believe it, but it does take some skill is our final video.
So Robin, if you wanted to add something to that, or if you wanted
to share that video, I think that I will go ahead and share the video.
So because we didn't announce the winners , this gives you like one
last chance to share the video.
And then when we come back on after this video, we really will pick three
winners to win a Frisbee disc from Blue-9 pet products that they decided
to do at the last minute to give away.
So we appreciate you guys doing that.
But I'm going to show this last video, which talks about how to set your dog
up for success by doing that roller.
All right.
Hi, I'm Jamie Popper with Blue-9 pet products.
And today I'm here to show you how to throw rollers.
Now, a roller is a way that you handle a disc in order to throw it
so that it rolls along the ground.
Oftentimes, this is the throw that we're going to use when we want to reinforce
our dog for a really great game.
Throwing rollers is also how we get our dogs started with chasing the disk.
What we're looking for here is when we roll that disc, our
dog is going to chase after it.
Often and insights their prey drive.
They're chasing after something, they get really excited and
they're happy to bite it.
If we start off throwing Frisbees for our dog and in the air, they can
have a hard time tracking them and finding a way to catch the disc up in
the air and they might struggle with that and not have as much fun with it.
We want to teach our dogs had to intercept the disc while it's rolling
along the ground to start with.
I often see people struggling with throwing rollers and here's a couple of
tips that I've picked up along the way.
We're going to hold our disk the same way that we would if we
were throwing a backhanded throw.
So the way that I do this, as I use my finger to stabilize it
here and then three fingers on the bottom of the disc to hold it up.
My thumb is going to be along the ring.
This is how I would throw a backhanded disk, and how I'm going to throw a roller
is by taking it to my opposite shoulder and then throwing it into the ground.
Okay.
So you're starting off with it at your shoulder and flicking
it down into the ground.
Again, starting with it at your shoulder, flicking it down into the ground.
And it's going to roll on by and your dog is going to be most excited
about chasing and acquiring that.
We also want to start off with throwing rollers for our puppies, because we
don't want to impact their growth plates.
Their growth plates are not fully closed and formed.
We don't want a lot of concussive high impact behaviors happening.
So we don't want our young puppies to be flying and jumping and leaping for
the disks until they've learned how to control their bodies appropriately and
their growth plates are fully closed.
I hope these tips and tricks on how to throw rollers helps you and your dog.
We have to find Jamie.
All right.
That took a second.
Jamie's hiding behind the disk.
Okay.
We are back.
So I love that video.
This is the most technology we've ever done during Facebook
live, it's very stressful for me.
I'm doing enough technical things.
So we're going to have Jamie pick the winner of our discs.
Yes, we've got three winners for disks, and I'm going to announce
on the board, we'll need you to do email with your to address, including
your email address so that we can send you some tracking information.
And so our three winners are, drumroll.
Janine Lowenstein.
I put it in the host chat too.
So I typed them all out for you.
Janine Lowenstein Lore Starring.
Yay!
And Tashi Farral.
Congrats.
I think each of you, you have one in a Blue-9 pet products, dog safe Frisbee.
So you can get started playing with your dogs.
If you will email your complete ship to address, including your email
address, if you could type it out for us there that'd be super helpful.
To Robin Bennett, Robin, what email address do you want them to send it to?
You can either email it to Robin R O B I n@thedoggurus.com or just PM us on our
Facebook page, whichever is easier with your name, shipping address, and email.
That would be awesome.
All right, so we do have some questions.
So I'm going to go back to there.
So I love this one.
Oh, I just lost it.
Jamie was saying, this is an amazing game for working.
She's talking about the go around amazing game for working with other dogs too.
So for daycare dogs, when you're trying to manage, I wouldn't do this with 50 dogs,
but if you have that small enrichment model and you're working with just a
couple of dogs, maybe 6 even, this is a good game that go around game is a good
game to actually work with other dogs where one of them is teach staying or
maybe is on the climb while you're working with the other dog to go around and fetch.
And then you switch the dog.
So I love that.
That's a great idea, Jamie.
And again, that's a great skill to work on in the enrichment
model type of daycare as well.
Yeah, another way that you could set that up too, is that if you send one
dog around and throw their Frisbee off to the right side of the field, the
other dog would be probably looking at you with the toy in their mouth.
While waiting for you to grab that one, grab that toy while the other
one is on its way back to you.
You'll send your second dog around and then throw your toy off
into the left side of the field.
I wanna make sure that you're not throwing them in the same direction
so that the oncoming dog and the outgoing dog are not crossing paths.
And that would be another way that you could do it with two dogs as well.
It takes a little bit more coordination for the person, not necessarily the dogs.
Jamie almost hit me in the head with a Frisbee today.
I was rippin that toy.
It would have given you a black eye.
I ducked, luckily my reactions super good.
And I did not hit me in the way we should have had that on video.
All right.
So we have a lot of hunting dogs, so they, most of the time
they go straight to the heel.
So I'm assuming that you're meaning when they're bringing the object back?
Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
That's awesome that you have a dog that's that obedient that they're
offering that heel position upon bringing the toy or whatever it is
that they've retrieved back to you.
So that's absolutely amazing.
I would do with that dog in order to preserve some of the training that they
have is ask them to maintain that heel position while you toss the toy out.
And so they should maintain that weight until they're directed to retrieve it.
So having a little bit of that understanding of something that
they've already been trained to do.
And just continuing to maintain that criteria for them.
For that specific, those specific dogs they're trained to maintain their
weight until they're directed to go and retrieve whatever it is that they're
retrieving usually it's waterfowl.
And that's also for those that have heard us talk before about teaching weight on
a climb, the blue balloon, which also Blue-9 sells, but that's another skill
teaching the dog to go onto something and wait until it's their turn to play
the game so to speak as another twist on that same type of behavior as well.
And then I love this one because Michelle said we try to work on
patience and queuing their dog to go around, but he just loves the ball.
I will tell you that it's counterintuitive.
Cause a lot of people who have those super, super driven dogs that are
like, gotta get it, gotta get it.
They're like obsessed.
A lot of times it's we feel like it's hard to train those dogs,
but if you just remember that the reward for that dog is the throwing
of the object and going to get the object, they will learn really fast.
It's just, you have to be consistent.
And it sounds like you know that it's more of just making sure that they
aren't like grabbing the ball out of your hand or the Frisbee out of your
hand too soon, like before you've thrown it or that kind of thing.
But I love those dogs that are really driven because they will figure
out the sooner I just go around and head out or the sooner I sit or
whatever it is you want them to do.
The sooner I do that, the sooner I get the ball.
So it's actually a great thing.
And then Jess had said monkey in the middle is a lot of fun to
play with two humans and a dog.
Do you want to talk a little bit about it?
I liked your picture, Jess, that's a new picture.
Like total random squirrel moments.
It is a beautiful portrait.
So monkey in the middle is a great game, too.
It starts to build up a little bit of their frustration.
It's a great game for dogs that are not as toy motivated.
So what Jess was talking about is you have two humans.
Those two humans are going to be playing fetch with each other.
So tossing a Frisbee back and forth while the dog is in the middle.
And they're often going to be chasing back and forth, trying to track that Frisbee a
little bit or the toy that's being thrown.
It builds up a little bit of frustration because they want that thing that's
moving and they just can't get to it.
And so that can help build up a little bit of drive as well.
That's a fun game for sure.
So Jamie on that, how do you know when you've crossed the line as far as
what's that right level of frustration?
Because I could see where it could go too far and it would be more
like teasing versus building drive.
So can you give some tips on that?
That is a great question.
I would be really conscious looking at the dog's body language.
If the dog is getting frustrated and then just, and then gives up,
then we've definitely gone too far and we're not we're not meeting
the goal that we were going for.
What I usually try to do for my dogs is maybe get like one frustration
bark, darn it gives me the thing bark.
And so that's like the mentality that I'm looking for.
And as soon as they demand that they get the toy, then I'll say, alright Great.
You want to play with me, let's do this.
And then I'll let them have two to three throws and then we call it quits there.
And then we'll build on that in successive and other training
sessions as we continue on.
So I think there's a fine balance and you really have to look at
the dog's body language and try to determine like, are they engaged?
Are they trying, are they getting more and more excited as you are
playing this game back and forth?
Or did they feel dejected and want to go and lay down and do something else?
Because you're just not that much fun.
You're a jerk.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Great question.
Carrie says, oh look, you can't see.
I don't know why it doesn't always let me see it, but it actually
says Jamie Popper, you are amazing.
Carrie.
Carrie is one of the best force free dog groomers and the
greater Oviedo and Orlando area.
She's absolutely phenomenal.
And she did all of my grooming for Roo when I lived there.
Awesome.
That's amazing.
All right.
And then Jax says, can't wait for April 2022.
So we are having, The Dog Gurus are having a conference in Jacksonville,
Florida in 2022 in April.
So stay tuned for all the schedule and information on that.
I think Jamie might be frozen now, so I might have to go see what she's doing over
there or have her come back into my room.
So Tasha had a question.
Oh.
Oh, all right, hang on, Susan.
Just chat amongst yourself.
I'm gonna go tell Jamie to come in here a second.
Okay.
All right.
Definitely post your questions and because this is some really good tips
to start engaging in some new and fun activities and just think about
how impressed your pet parents will be if they see video of their dogs
doing some of these new fun games.
So you can definitely find this video on our Facebook page and
it'll be on our YouTube channel too.
We hope this will help you up your enrichment game because over the summer
you probably didn't have time to be creative and think of new things to do.
All right.
Jamie's going to come in here.
I think in a second.
Yeah.
Something happened.
The good thing is she's just in the other room.
So I'm just going to tell her to go in here again.
Okay.
Here she is.
Live next to me.
Now we have to do that awkward oh no.
Where you're standing.
Wait, this is weird.
Cause you're like the opposite side of that's too funny.
Okay.
Anyway.
All right.
All right.
All right.
So now it's really weird.
So I'm not going to look at you.
It just look at me at the screen.
So somebody had a question about the two toys.
So all three of these videos that we have that we've already shared are
available on the Blue-9 YouTube channel.
Maybe Jess O'Connor, we'll drop that in there real quick for us.
Cause she's super amazing.
So all three of those videos are available on our YouTube channel.
So you can definitely take a look there.
Do you have a video of two Frisbee?
The dog drops the first and gets to the second.Go back to that switch game.
That switch game has a little bit of that in there.
As we're sending the go around and then throwing the rollers.
Yeah.
So if you, I don't know if you missed the very first video that we did,
we actually did the video of wait.
Now, do you want me to shift out?
So this is why she was in another room.
But we did do a video of switching two discs as well.
Okay.
Hang on.
Did you talk about the one on the Frisbee in the area?
Okay.
So Tasha's question was once your dog is chasing rollers, what
do you do to encourage them to follow the Frisbee in the air?
That is a great question.
So I'm going to use this as my Frisbee and the way that I do
that is by what we call takes.
So let's pretend that this is a Frisbee.
I just put my dog in a sit, stay off to my side, and then I'm going
to present the Frisbee horizontally so that they can jump up and bite
it and I'll tell my dog get it.
And I'm only going to have it, maybe two feet off the ground so
that the dog just has to do little baby jump in order to grab it.
And then gradually I can have them jump over my leg to get to that.
And that's how you can start to build some height.
Once you've gotten a few takes from your dog, so you're presenting it,
they'rebiting it, taking it out of your hand, presenting it, they're
biting it and taking it out of your hand, then you're ready to start
doing some of those shorter tosses.
You still want to do that go around because if your dog is sitting
right in front of you and you toss a Frisbee, they have to stand up,
turn around and then accelerate.
And by the time that they've started to accelerate, the Frisbee
is going to be on the ground.
Do you want that go around and then just do a short toss so that
it's right out in front of them and they're going to grab it.
If your dog stares out at it, oh no, what's going to happen to my face if I
try to get this hard plastic flying thing out of the air, go back to those rollers.
You want the dog to be really confident, snatching those rollers off the ground
before you start throwing them in the air.
Awesome.
All right.