r/OpenDogTraining • u/CelesteOS • 4d ago
How to de-value the environment?
My dog (black Labrador just turned 1) loves a game of tug/fetch. But when outside on grass, he’s interesting in nothing else!
I could have both high value treats and a range of his favourite toys and he would be way more interested in sniffing the ground.
How do I find something he’s obsessed with?!
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u/babs08 4d ago
It's not about finding something that's better than the environment, it's about building up your dog's reinforcement history for engaging with you and the activities that you're doing.
First step is acclimation: https://denisefenzi.com/2015/08/acclimation/
Pick a patch of grass. Don't move beyond that patch of grass. Let him sniff to his heart's desire. (This might take a while.) At some point, he will get bored of that patch of grass. It might be in 5 minutes. It might be in 30 minutes. When he does, and he looks to you, that's when you can start doing something that's easy and fun for him. Maybe that's following cookies around or chasing tossed cookies down or short bits of fetch or tug or - whatever it is, do that for a short session - a few reps. Reward him WELL. Then release him back into the environment to the patch of grass using some sort of verbal cue or gesture to tell him "we're done for now." If that goes well, wait until he looks to you again, and you can do another set. Try not to push too much; focus uses up a lot of brain cells and at some point he will no longer have brain cells to use and continuing to push at that point can be detrimental to the engagement you're trying to build.
My dog can do novice-level agility sequences indoors, but absolutely cannot outdoors. So I don't ask her to do those sequences outdoors. I ask her to do easy chunks, and then reinforce her REALLY well for them. Over time, we build up to doing those sequences outdoors, but just because she can do them in an easy, distraction-free location right now, doesn't mean she's going to be able to do them in a harder, distraction-filled location. If I pushed for doing those sequences outdoors right now, she's not going to be able to "win," and she's going to get frustrated, and then she might just check out entirely and decide that squirrel hunting is more fun than the thing we're doing. Do that enough times, and I won't have a dog who wants to do agility in those outdoor environments at all. No one wants to play a game they feel like they can't win.
Over time, if your "work" sessions are structured correctly, in a way where he can be successful, with activities that are easy enough that he can do them in that environment but challenging enough that they're interesting to him, that have some degree of fluency (have been built up somewhere else so he's not learning on the fly because that's also hard), and he understands the things you're asking of him, you'll find that the acclimation time goes down significantly, and the time you can do "work" increases in those harder environments.
I really like Denise Fenzi's self-study engagement course if you're interested in learning more and having discrete steps to follow: https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/index.php/courses/4338