Clean Run - March 2013 - 56

time your puppy goes in.
As you walk by, give him a
cookie. Give him chew toys
in his crate. Surprise him by
putting him in his crate, and
then releasing him just a
few moments later for a fun
game with you. Teach your
puppy (as in Susan Garrett’s
Crate Games DVD) to wait at
the door of the crate before
being released. This is also
a great way to teach your
puppy his release word and
a great sit-stay.

lean in for a good game
of tug. Use a soft crate for
this game. As you build
distance, you don’t want
your puppy to hurt himself
driving into the crate.

Stage 2: Send to the crate.
Before you go to this stage,
your puppy must believe
that his crate is a great place
to be. When you open the
crate door, does the puppy
enthusiastically run into the
crate? If so, you are ready for
this stage.
Build a little anticipation by
restraining the puppy just
a bit in front of his crate.
When you can feel him
leaning toward the crate,
let go. As his head goes in
toss a handful of really great
cookies into the crate. As he
finishes those cookies, call
him out, and play the game
again. Start close to the
crate and don’t add distance
until your puppy is fighting
you to get into his crate.
Remember, the farther you
are away from the crate, the
more delayed the reward
will be for the puppy. First
build value close with quick
rewards, and distance will
come easily.
For puppies that are highly
toy driven, instead of
throwing cookies, throw a
tug toy inside the crate and

Once the crate has a lot of
value for your pup, build anticipation with a little restraint.
Release and watch your puppy
drive into his crate, throwing
cookies or a tug toy in after
him. If using a toy, lean in and
tug inside the crate.

Game 5:
Circle the Cone
For this exercise, you will
need a medium-size traffic cone (or some other
similar stable, round object)
and when we move onto
the next set of exercises
described in Part 2 of this
series, you will need an additional one or two cones.

Stage 1: Build value for
interacting with the cone.
This can start as a shaping
exercise. Get close to the
cone. If the puppy looks at or
approaches the cone, say Yes
and deliver a treat to the puppy near the cone. Position the
treat in such a way that you
encourage the puppy to continue around the cone. You
are not luring, simply using
placement of reinforcement
to encourage the behavior
you want. Stay close to the
cone so that you can keep a
high rate of reinforcement.

As you shape the puppy to circle
the cone, place your treat close
to the cone in such a way that
you are encouraging the puppy
to circle around it.

If the puppy offers other
behaviors like nose-touching the cone or pawing at
the cone, just laugh a bit
(remember this is a game),
encourage the puppy to
move away from the cone,
and start again. Remember
to count out five to ten
treats. When they are gone,
take a break.

Once the puppy is reliably circling the cone, it’s a good time
to switch to a toy as a reward.
Add distance a little bit at a time,
always looking for the puppy’s
enthusiastic response.

Stage 2: Sending to the
cone. Once the puppy is
obviously finding value in
interacting with the cone
and is reliably offering the
circling behavior, you can
begin to add distance from
the cone, sending the puppy to circle the cone and
come back to you for his reward. This is a good time to
transition to a toy reward,
if you haven’t already done
so. Get the puppy playing
tug near the cone. Grab the
tug out of his mouth and
when the puppy offers the
circling behavior, reward
again with the tug. Don’t
add too much distance too
soon. You want the puppy
to have a high rate of reinforcement at this stage.

Next Month
Have fun with these
games. In Part 2 of this
series, I’ll talk about advanced stages of the
games and we’ll put the
games together to teach
your puppy a brilliant response to your handling maneuvers as well as love for
and drive to obstacles. D

Anne Stocum lives in upstate New York and has been involved in dog agility for nearly 15 years. She enjoys teaching all levels of agility and helping teams achieve
their best through consistent handling and good dog training that builds a solid foundation, and that is fun for both handler and dog. Anne has competed 10
times in national finals (AKC and USDAA) with her Shelties Breeze and Lacey. She and Breeze were also members of the 2010 AKC/USA World team. Anne blogs
about raising her Border Collie, Tai, at annestocumagility.wordpress.com.

Clean Run

March 13

http://annestocumagility.wordpress.com

Clean Run - March 2013

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