Using a ball to out for sleeve - Page 1

Positive reinforcement kind of thing. Has anyone done this and what if the dog prefers the ball to the sleeve and loses focus?

Why not use a second sleeve? Or how about the same sleeve? 

Yep, alot in ring sport. I taught my last dog the call off on a ball. It is a technuiqe benificial to the super fast outs they want in ring sport. If the dog learns to out on a ball or tug tube, you can blow the whistle and present the tug tube or toy at the same time, thus the dog associates the whistle with the out/toy and the out becomes almost simultanious with the whistle. You can get a very fast out and do it with very little/no compultion.

If a dog prefers to play ball than do bitework, I would have some serious reservations about the dog itself. 

As far as "losing focus" One thing that can happen if you use a seperate toy too much on the out is, you can have a tough time with the dog outing and looking for something else on a static bite. If the decoy is static for too long, the dog will start looking for something else. This is really easy to fix or avoid all together if your decoy has good timing.

I've seen it done in ringsport also and tried it the other night. This is the problem I experienced: dog would not out on the sleeve, and when he finally did I used a ball to reward him because we almost always have out problems when his drive gets too high. His drive transferred from sleeve to ball and sleeve suddenly had very low value to him. It was a very frustrating time for me because here he was, driving into the sleeve so hard that corrections were only making him worse, and the moment the ball comes out all that energy and strength goes into the *ball* instead.

Few things I was thinking of that could've resulted in this: decoy is 'friends' with the dog, and when opportunity presented itself for him to play with the handler instead of this other guy, he chose that. Also, his drive for this hard sleeve is lower than it had been when he was on the bitesuit sleeve (on the bitesuit sleeve, he would not out for a tug and this is probably only his fourth or fifth time on the hard sleeve).

We will take a step back with this dog and focus on getting his drive back up for the hard sleeve. Maybe go back to the bitesuit sleeve (man is my decoy gonna love that idea -_-). Thanks guys.

I've used a ball to teach the out, when playing with another ball.  It's easy, no conflict and can really be ingrained to the point that when you say "out" it's a reflex for the dog to out before you ever see a sleeve. 

I would not teach the out on the sleeve with a ball.  The dogs focus needs to be on the helper.  As someone mentioned before, reward with the sleeve or another sleeve etc.  I haven't seen many "ringers" use a ball to teach the out.  I've seen them use it to teach the call back.  Out is taught before they are biting the decoy, and out is out and guard, not out and come back for the ball.  When they whistle, it is a call back and the ball/tug is to reward that, not the out.

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wow, you've just took up 10 minutes of my time to read that turn off turn on is nothing more than repition and consistency, which is what ALL dog training is about.  That and you don't like to talk about drives.  Where's the revelation?

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