Let’s say we want our experienced dog to drop a disc at a distance of say 15 yards so he can go after the next disc that we would like to throw at him. This is a fairly common problem for many discdog teams, you might have had it yourself. For some reason they just don’t want to drop.
So our focus is on the drop. We need to ignore everything else and focus on that one behavior: the drop.
If we are working on a drop with our dog 15 yards away from us, we request the drop, as the dog is retrieving a previously caught disc. As soon as the dog drops that disc, positively mark the behavior (yes!) and shoot out a roller, or some other throw that requires a quick reaction by the dog. This throw is your dog’s reward; the game is exciting. That’s it.
Notice that there is no pressure for compliance. Everything is up to the dog. In order for the game to continue, he simply has to honor our request. If it takes 20 seconds for the dog to drop that disc, wait 20 seconds. If he is way out of position, ignore it and reward the drop. Just make sure that you get a positive mark on that drop and that the reward comes flying at the same time.
The time between the request and behavior will decrease as you work in this manner. The more clearly you communicate, the faster it happens. It is possible to get startling results in a no more than a few tosses, even with experienced dogs with a history of this problem.
The idea here is to get the dog to believe that his honoring of our requests is what makes the game fun. The dropping of the disc on command causes the game to get exciting.