This is the most versatile dog toy we have ever owned for things like.
Teaching your dog a brain game. To make crate training easier.
You can simply use it as a pastime for your dog.
You can even pop it in the freezer for a summer treat.
And the good people at Kong sent us this as well as 2,499 more.
Which is a very cool opportunity because it means we can donate these to
shelters and charities and dogs in need. But before we do that,
there's a few things we wanna show you. So check this out.
Welcome back to McCann dogs. My name is instructor Shannon.
And today we are going to talk about toy motivation.
If your dog is not toy motivated,
I have three different strategies that we are going to talk about today to help
them build some toy drive. Now,
lots of dogs come home already loving and being really interested in toys,
but lots of dogs don't. And in my experience with tollers,
I have had some that have come home,
just being excited about toys right off the hop.
And then I've had some that have come home and had no interest whatsoever in
toys. Now, despite being a retriever, Ned came home,
having almost no real interest in toys at all.
And I had to spend a lot of time building that drive up.
So one of the games that we played in scent was to take a tiny little bit of
something that smelled really good and just rub that on the opening of this toy.
And this is one of the things that I absolutely love about the Kong toy is that
it has the ability to take food inside it very, very easily.
And all I'm gonna do with that because I wanna create some engagement with my
dog. I want him to love the toy,
but I also wanna make sure that he loves the toy in connection with me.
So what I'm gonna do with this little bit of cheese is I'm gonna put it out
really easy. It's so easy for him to find it. And I'm gonna say, okay,
get the cheese good boy. When he gets there, I'm actually gonna say yes,
and then I'm gonna feed him from me. And then we're gonna take that Kong.
And I'm gonna let him lick that,
that cheese outta the Kong as I'm holding onto it.
So that I'm part of the equation as well. Now that was a really,
really easy first step for Ned. It was a couple of feet away.
It was visible to him and he could probably smell the cheese from where he was
sitting. What I wanna do is start to make this game a little bit harder.
So I'm actually gonna start to place the Kong a little bit further away.
So again,
I've got a little bit of a scent indicator that I'm gonna rub in the inside of
the Kong. I am going to go and place that a little bit further away from my dog.
Good boy. And then I'm gonna tell him, okay, get the cheese. Yay,
good boy. I'm gonna meet him at the Kong. I'll feed him.
And then I'm gonna take that toy back away and I'm gonna let him lick the
cheese out of it. As I engage with him and tell him he is a wonderful dog.
Now of course we were talking about them using their nose,
not them seeing something and going to find it.
So now what I need to do now that he knows the game and he knows what to do when
I say find the cheese.
I am going to leave him in his crate so that I can hide this,
but I'm not gonna make the hide too hard at this point because he's still
learning.
And I wanna make sure that he understands the game is to try to find this toy.
So again, I'm gonna take my little bit of cheese.
I'm gonna rub it on the inside of the Kong there.
Just a tiny bit is all I need there because I'm going to make the bigger reward,
the engagement with me and the rewards that come from me.
And all I'm gonna do is take it to a pretty easy hiding spot,
just right around the corner here.
I'm gonna put it down and then I'm gonna go and get Ned outta the crate and see
if he can use his start to use his nose to find it.
Oh, that's not the cheese. find the cheese.
Where's the cheese
Time out. Now. I made a bit of a mistake here. So let's talk about that.
There's a lot of stuff going on in this room.
There's a big basket of toys there that happen to have some of Ned's favorite
toys in them. And there's some other distractions around here as well.
And I made the mistake of not setting up my environment well enough so that my
dog could definitely have success.
And he made other choices besides trying to find this Kong.
He tried to find some other toys that he was interested in.
He tried to find another Kong that was up over there.
So if I minimize the distractions in my location,
I set my dog up for a much more successful search with that, uh,
toy that I'm looking for him to find. Yay, look at you.
You found it. Good boy. All right, get that.
Get that you want that you want the cheese?
So even now he's more interested in the food in my hand than he is in this Kong.
So that means that I am doing a good job of engaging him,
but I need to make sure that he's really more interested in this Kong because
that's sort of the point here.
So I'm gonna show him this and I might move it around and make it more
interesting. Good job. Get that cheese in there, buddy.
And now he's interested in it. Good boy. Way to go. Now,
the next thing we are going to tap into is our dog's chase drive.
And that desire to chase things is so strong in every single
dog. We just need to make it work to our advantage.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm either going to get a long toy to use,
or I'm gonna make my own by taking a line or a shoelace of some sort.
And just basically making this into a toy that I can drag around on the ground
and I can make appealing for my dog so that we can build his desire for toys.
By using that chase drive. I need two things in order to make this work one,
I need to be able to make the toy move.
So I've got it tied to a line here so that I can jerk it around a little bit and
make it look like pray to my dog.
The other thing that I need to be able to do is keep control of the toy because
when I've got a young dog in training,
the last thing I want is for him to decide he does like that toy so much that he
is going to exit stage left and I'm gonna be left all by myself to play.
So what I'm going to do is make this animated, make it exciting.
And then when he latches onto it,
I'm gonna make sure that we get to engage together and play. Okay, buddy,
get it.
Yay. Good boy. Get, get, get it. Yeah. Good job.
And the string allows me to let him grab it and do some tug.
The last thing I wanna do is get my point,
my dog to the point where he is completely exhausted and disinterested in this
toy.
So I'm gonna make sure that I keep my play short and I put my toy away while
he's still wanting more. So when he's still excited about this thing,
I'm gonna make sure that that's when the toy goes away.
So that the next time it comes out, it's just as exciting for my dog.
A lot of times people think that when their dog is not interested in one toy,
that means that they should go out and find all sorts of different kinds of
toys. And while that's not untrue, you do wanna try different toys.
You don't wanna be reliant on that. Rather be reliant on making one toy really,
really interesting with some of the games that we've talked about today.
In addition, it may seem counterintuitive,
but we don't want you to leave toys out on the ground for your dog to have
access to all the time.
If this was the scene I had in my living room and my dog always had the option
of coming and playing with these toys on his own,
it makes it really hard to build, drive, to wanna play with those toys for,
with me.
And it also makes those toys become much less valuable for the dog because they
always have access to them. And when you're done with the toy,
you are going to put it away. Now,
the interesting thing about putting it up somewhere high,
like on the fridge dogs already love coming into the kitchen because that's
where the food comes from. There's already innate value for them there.
Now what I like to do when I've got a young dog in training that I'm trying to
build toy motivation for is I will take that toy off the fridge when they're
excited about the kitchen, tease them and be silly. And whee,
and then put it right back up on the fridge before they actually get to play
with it. We've talked about using food in toys and there's lots of toys that,
that is an option for however,
I would never leave my dog alone with a toy like this.
And that is where the Kong really shines.
The Kong is a product that we trust to make sure that we can safely leave alone
with our dogs. Now,
the caveat to caveat to that is that every dog is a little bit different and you
should always supervise your dog with anything you're leaving them alone with
first to make sure you feel safe doing so.
The first thing I'm gonna do is take a little hun of cheese and block that hole
at the end so that everything I put into my Kong,
that's runny doesn't end up running out.
And that's important because I'm gonna be using peanut butter.
And I like to use natural peanut butter.
If you're using peanut butter with your dog,
it is crucial that you make sure there is no xylitol in the ingredient list.
That is very, very dangerous for dogs.
So I've got my cheese stuffed in the end here.
I'm gonna take a little bit of my peanut butter and I'm gonna stuck that down
inside the Kong, not too much, but just enough to peak interest.
And then I might even take some other little treats.
I might take some liver bits and drop them in there.
And I might take a little bit more cheese and drop it in there.
Now what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take a piece of carrot.
That'll fit nicely into that hole. I'm gonna stuff it down nice and deep,
and I'm going to make my dog work away at that.
And that's going to take him some time and it's gonna build value as it's
happening. Now,
another really fun thing that I can do is freeze my Kong so that my dog has a
nice frozen treat for hot summer days. I've put that cheese in the bottom.
So now I can just tuck it inside of a glass,
put it in the freezer door and leave it overnight. See in the morning,
now that your dog is really excited about toys,
it's gonna be really important to work on your drop it command.
And if you need some help with that, watch this video right here. Now,
if you'd like some support, as well as a guided program,
to help you through check out our puppy essentials or life skills,
online training programs, you'll find the link in the description below.
And on that note, I'm instructor Shannon. This is Ned happy training.