problem with my puppy's drive

[pwillow]

Hi everyone, I have a 3 month old puppy and I am trying to get her interested in the ball as a reward. I got her a gapay ball which I attach to a leash and have her chase.

The only problem is that she loves to go after grasshoppers.
While I try to redirect her, She only cares about sniffing at grasshoppers till they jump and then pouncing on them.
I think she might be eating them sometimes too.

I am trying to ignore the grasshopper thing but shes so obsessed with them...maybe I'm just too boring. Any advice?

[Emoore]

Part of it's the age. At 12 weeks or thereabouts, her attention span is about the same as a goldfish's.

[wildo]

Stop training in an environment with grasshoppers until you develop proper focus...

[pwillow]

willy thanks for the simple advice, It seems like common sense I guess I just didn't even think of it because I do so much running around I have been doing it in the back yard..but now I will definitely switch things up to get my goldfish to leave all the little insects alone. lol

[suzzyq01]

I completely agree with wildo and emoore but also you are boring in comparison to the grasshoppers. You need to find a toy that is the coolest thing in the world! The ball on a leash isn't cutting it. Move to a less distracting place and be patient because she is young and has the attention span of a goldfish.

[martemchik]

She might just be too young to care about the ball...mine didn't retrieve the ball until he was about 5 months old. He did love it though and would chew on it all day. She might also just not have the ball drive in her, its not really something you can teach. Find something she really really loves and it might distract her from the grasshoppers, but at this point it might just be her young age.

[wildo]

Don't know if you know who Susan Garrett is (she's a world famous dog trainer and agility star) but I recently subscribed to a year long, online training "thing" with her. One technique that she uses for puppies is to train in her bathroom. It's about the most boring environment she could possibly think of, not to mention it's pretty small so there isn't a lot of "exploration" space. This allows the pup to not be distracted by the environment. As the dog gains focus, confidence, and skill- she will move to more distracting environments. If the dog fails in that environment- it's back to the bathroom.

You're right- seems totally obvious. But I wouldn't have thought of it either unless I had seen her do it...

Glad I could help! I think you will find success with such an environment switch...

[suzzyq01]

I think we expect too much out of our little German Shepherds also. I know I expected mine to do anything I said at 6 months. Reality is a B*** lol

[jocoyn]

IT may be too that at thate age a softer squishier toy is in order.

[suzzyq01]

I agree jocoyn.

Somthing you can fling around that has movement that will invoke her prey drive.


These fleece toys are great


I have one of these and Sonar loves it, it has squeakys in it and I can fling it around and he will chase it.