Tennis Court Training
The weather has really been warming up around here so Kody and I have started some tennis court training. Kody wants to be outside again, and I have always wanted to give him more time to be off leash. It’s pretty fun.
We couldn’t use the tennis court before because I really didn’t have any way of getting Kody back under control when he started barking. Now I just say “Go get ‘em!” and pretty soon Kody will calm down and come get his treat. That’s one of those weird things where something that seems like rewarding bad behavior actually extinguishes it. When Kody gets really bugged by something and barks, “Go get ‘em!” means if you calm down and come here and sit quietly, you can have a treat. So in that sense, it solves the immediate problem of the barking. But why doesn’t Kody go back and start barking again to get another treat? I don’t actually know, I’m sure the technical reasons are written down somewhere, but my guess is that the barking is caused by fear and related dog emotions, and the “Go get ‘em!” game has removed all those things. Since he’s not afraid anymore, he doesn’t really want to bark. Since we’re on the tennis court to play games which involve treats anyway, he can do far more fun things than barking to get treats. I suppose if I only gave him treats for “Go get ‘em!” things would be different. That might explain how this game goes wrong for many people. But whatever the reasons, it works for us.
The main game we play on the tennis court is fetch. Well, kind of. Kody is not used to being off leash, and is still getting used to the idea of wandering too far away from me. Also, for now, smelling different areas of the tennis court is far more fun for him than anything else. So I walk around the perimeter of the court and when I get to a corner I throw the tennis ball to the next corner, then I start walking to get it. Kody comes with me and usually runs a little ahead to get to the tennis ball. I’m training him to touch it with his nose at which point I click and treat. I’m hoping he will eventually start picking up the ball and bringing it back to me to get the treat sooner. But right now, I can see he’s taking a lot of information in and can’t give the tennis ball his full attention. Also, we are working on the occasional distraction outside the court that causes Kody to bark, but he’s working through those pretty fast.
He seems to be having a great time. In fact, last night he very sneakily found the tennis ball and started playing actual fetch with it in the house. This is why I’m pretty sure he’ll start to play actual fetch once he’s more comfortable off leash. By the way, we use one of the smaller dog tennis balls, not a full sized tennis ball.
We both get pretty good exercise from this and it’s a lot of fun.
2 Comments
Matt
Shopsy likes running after balls and will usually bring them back again in exchange for a treat – only he discovered he could sit and shred the fuzz from a tennis ball. The solution to this was to get him a street hockey ball – they’re bright orange and hollow, but pretty much indestructible – at least for our guy, who’s normally pretty quick chew holes in even the most rugged appearing toys.
Kody will chew the fuzz off too sometimes and a great chewer as well. Those street hockey balls look like a good idea.