How to Build Drive

Using Food Dispensing Toys

Seeing as last week’s lesson covered a topic that requires some drive in a dog in order to perform the task, I thought I’d spend a lesson on building drive. In particular building drive on a dog with little to no toy drive….

Remember, there is always something a dog will work for. Dogs need to eat, so food is always an option. You may have to skip a meal or two in order to get your dog to work for food, but your dog will thank you.  They are working animals and LOVE to work for food. In this video I introduce you to a great idea.  A food dispensing toy. These are often called LOTUS Balls, but that is the brand name, there are others. Personally, I feel the lotus ball is the best one, it’s the one Janet and I use with our dogs and I would have no issue recommending it very highly for this purpose.

Hiding the Food

Some people may say, “Why not just throw the hot dog or cheese on the floor for your dog?”  Great point and exactly what I’ve done for years. There are two issues with this:

• It makes a mess and distracts future training
• It’s not as much fun for your dog.

For some reason, tearing open the Lotus ball makes the dog LOVE IT even more!