Ball (or other treasure) posession

Woody seems to have recently developed abit of ball possession.

Every now and then he will find something that becomes his ultimate treasure, whether it's a ball in the house or a stick/ball/other time on a walk and he will NOT let it go. The worst is if he decides he wants another dogs/childs/persons ball in the park NOTHING will get it off him apart from sometimes walking out of the park, back to him, blow the whistle to a recall and snap the lead on!

I think it's a game as we have been completely ignoring him and now he will come close, let it go near us but not take his eye off us. Then, when we make a move (shifting on the sofa or going into the kitchen etc) he will snatch it up and parade past us with it. Little punk

What is the best way to train this out of him? It's not the end of the world but I'd hate to think he ever did it with something dangerous or valuable.

What's made him start doing it I wonder? Is it because we take his toys form him and bin them when he's destroyed them? We always do a swap for a toy or treat and say good boy once he's got something new.

Ahhh the inner psyche of a dog, it's a mystery to us all

I think it's a game as we have been completely ignoring him and now he will come close, let it go near us but not take his eye off us. Then, when we make a move (shifting on the sofa or going into the kitchen etc) he will snatch it up and parade past us with it. Little punk


Molly does this too, Charlie doesn't-maybe its a spaniel thing

Sorry, not much help

Ignore what is in his mouth and make a big fuss over him. Act like it is very unimportant to you.

Cant you use this?

Take his own special toy out, maybe a cheaper gundog dummy, & do some searching & retrieving when out.
Do some seek backs, some throwing into dense cover etc.

Hes doing what comes naturally imo, but like many working breeds hes gone "self employed" on this one. For me this crys out "need more mental stimulation". So instead of how can i stop it...... think what more can we do!!!!

Now for a start you need to Train/ retrain the leave command. I start this on food & then move to articles. If you are interested i will tell you later, though ive put my technique down on dogsey a few times & you might of seen it already

Pidge, you'll not beleive this but Ruby has this week too become absolutely besotted with a ball!!!

She parades it around the table constantly showing it off to everyone. She just loves it. She's destroyed all her other toys, even the indestructable ones, but this ball is just her new love!!!

Ben always feel he needs to give me this or that... Of course if I don't exchange it for a treat he'll walk off with it...

I don't always wear my glasses, and if I'm in the loungeroom and he sees my glasses on the kitchen table, he picks them up and comes to me... When this happens I use a very excited voice, telling him what a good boy he is for bringing my glasses to me... As I don't have any treats on me at the time, my voice needs to be encouragement enough to drop them in my hand... He gets a treat afterwards, but I don't know if he can associate that with the glasses....

He will also bring me remote controls, mobile phone etc...

The big problem is, when I'm not at home... He picks up these things and they have nowhere to go, so he might as well chew them up!

None of these accident in the last couple of months..

take something REALLY tasty out with you and teach a 'swop' command for emergency ball nicking. You MUST give him the nice thing every time, its a deal and he has to trust your side of it.

Whilst also doing the seeking etc suggested.

its a common spaniel problem---he is controlling you.

rune

Mish, thanks for all the advice but we already do this. We've been doing this when out on walks with him for months. Also, I thought what comes naturallly to him is to find it, hold it and drop it, which he is very good at and loves doing but there is just the odd thing that he decides is treasure.

Yes, I think he is being a punk about it. High value treats, toys and excited Mummy doesn't work. His recall is perfect and he'll still come to me but he'll run off if I go near him thinking I'm going to take his ''treasure''.

It's not all the time, in fact in the office today he started ripping apart a ball so I called him to me and made him drop it. He thought about it and then did it, so it is very intermittent and I can't quite place my finger on it.

youve just got to do more then! & re afirm his leave, If he dosent leave it when you tell him then you need to train him more.

id train a "leave " command

Can you train he a retrieve with him too?

even if you "think" he knows this , he dosent fully understand it or he wouldnt be doing it would he? Train him more!!! Also training is "ongoing" so even if youve taught him once dosent mean he dosent need refreashers!!!!

Hehe ''yes maam'' *salutes*

I'll go back to basics on it then and see. What do you mean about the bold bit? Sorry not sure what that means.