Dutch Shepherd Forum

Not really sure where to post this, but this looks good.
En's deer hide flirt pole tug has gone from 16" long to about 7". Long before she worked it down so drastically, she was getting...lazy on the chase. Instead of maintaining chase on the tug itself, she'd move up the line to where it was moving slower.
I've done a good bit of drive building for the tug. She loves to go for it, but she fairly regularly goes ahead of it and grabs the tether. I thought about tying her off and working at the end of her line (already do that to build drive), but keeping the spacing just right so that she can't get up the line from the tug is damn near impossible.
Anyone have any relevant experience and insight?

Following.

Backtie

I have had a similar problem with both my dogs on the flirt pole and while playing tug. On the flirt pole they try and get the line and on the tug they try and get a better grip by moving up until they bite my hand. In both cases, I got them to play properly by doing the following- Ill just give you the example of the flirt pole. When she bites the tether, I stop playing and use a non-reward marker (not no, but a different word meaning she isnt doing it right "Nain") then I redirect her mouth to the tug itself and tell her to bite....once she bites we continue playing. I bet if you do that a couple times shell get the idea.

Put the dog on a harness and tie it to something this called a backtie! Then it's your fault if the dog grabs anything other than they object