Whip its: A great way to teach your dog to play!

I came across this great video today on Facebook and couldn’t help sharing it! Lauren Langman of Devon Dogs demonstrates how to not only get your dog more interested in a toy, but how you can build a balance between toy drive and self control.

I’ve often recommended students use lunge whips or a toy on a string to mimic real prey. I think this video does an excellent job of showing how to use the “catch and release” of the toy really get your dog interested. I know my JRT will love this game!

Using the “flip” to teach the dog self control is a great way to avoid the stress that can come from a dog being repeatedly corrected for breaking a sit stay.

Best of all, you are working with the dog at a reaction level when you start introducing the self control techniques. I always want my dogs to react to my signals instead of thinking about doing it, since when they are in a high environment such as a trial many thinking behaviours vanish. If the dog is in reaction mode, they are responding to commands on a subconscious level.

This is definitely one I’m going to add into my training!

Hope you get as much out of this video as I did!

Jess Martin

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