Learning to tug

Here Miska teaches her puppies how to tug.  While many people used to think that tugging with a dog was 'bad' because it would encourage aggression, we know differently these days! Of course, the game of tug has to be under the human's control.  Here's a good answer to the question of will tugging make my dog aggressive from another one of my favourite and respected animal behaviourists, Dr. Ian Dunbar:  http://dogtime.com/tug-of-war-with-dog-dunbar-faq.htm . In fact, it's absolutely critical to develop tug drive or toy drive if you plan on doing agility. Here's a link to a great article on creating a motivating toy from one of the world's top agility trainers, Susan Garrett, who happens to live practically next door to me (well, about 1 hour drive) and if you don't know about Susan Garrett and her training, you should check out her blog and her website.  And from Susan, here is a list of over 60 tug toy ideas.

Tugamania!

Miska and Tyro had a good game of tugging over a destuffed stuffie that Miska won at the Rio Salado Vizsla Specialty Show. It didn't take her any time to eviscerate the stuffie.  Somehow the toy became more desirable after being destuffed!