AND MOLLY TOO!!

AND MOLLY TOO!!

Monday, June 20, 2011

Motivation - or Lack Thereof

It has been a constant challenge to keep Zack's motivation up whenever we do anything together whether it is rally o or agility. He is weird for a terrier in that he doesn't really have much drive for anything except live rabbits - which are a no no in the ring and the odd skateboard ahahah. One minute he seems to be having a great time doing agility and then the next he couldn't care less. I think that is a border terrier trait as well from what I have been reading. There are times when Zack does go crazy for certain toys and plays alot by himself with them in the garden but only for a short period and then he couldn't care less if you shake it in front of his face so it is hard to use toys as a motivation. It is probably all my fault in the way I have been doing things and my instructors at agility on Sunday gave me some great pointers about the way to use toys and food rewards to try and keep Zack's attention and motivation up and I will certainly give it a whirl.

3 comments:

marley said...

I dussnt play wiv toys unless I can wrassle em off Lola, but that do not be often. It would be great if you could share sum tips

bodie said...

If you find one toy that he really loves and then keep that for "your toy". By that I mean this is the toy that you both interact with each other with. Don't leave it lying about for him for his own use to get bored with. He only gets to play with it when you have time to play with him with it. So for a BT something tuggy is likely to be the fave. Bodie is the same a very laid back dude. Now Magoo on the other hand .......

Kim said...

Motivation is built by you and not inherent in all dogs. Have you looked at the book Click To Play? She has LOTS of ideas for all kinds of dogs with all kinds of drive levels (or the lack thereof). You can find it free online at http://agilitynerd.com/blog/agility/publications/. He has each chapter posted seperately and you can download them as PDF's. Good Luck!