There are several standard rewards with discs, but feel free to use what motivates your dog. I would resist mixing food treats and discs though, unless it is absolutely necessary. Save your treats for training tricks off the k9disc field.
A roller is a disc that is rolled along the ground like the wheel of a car. It bounces as it rolls, tends to trigger prey drive in most dogs. To throw a roller hold the disc in your hand like a normal backhand throw, but turn your palm up so the rim of the disc points to the ground and the sky. Flick the disc out about 5-10 feet in front of you, make sure to get it spinning well. The more spin the better and longer it will roll.
A Slider is a reward used mainly for high drive dogs. All have have to do is to slide the disc upside down on the ground at a distance of about 1-4 yards. We use it as a positioning tool to set our dogs a particular distance away from us for vaults, overs, or just whenever we need our dogs a few yards away. This helps greatly with the flow of a training session.
Tugging is a treat reward for discdogs. It does several things for us. It attaches prey drive to the biting of the disc; essentially a way of back chaining a catch. It also lends itself to back chaining a retrieve to the hand as the game often starts and stops with both dog and handler touching the disc.
Tugging allows us to get plenty of reps of biting the disc, dropping the disc, and retrieving to the hand. It is also very rewarding to most dogs. An added bonus of the tug is that it allows us to work on tricks in close proximity to our bodies. This is difficult with rollers and favorite throws.
Apply the rules of the Consequent Chain when you tug, and remember that a tug for reward should not only be a simple bite and release on the disc. Letting your dog win when tugging for reward can be a good thing, as we will discuss later.
Tugging is probably the only skill that allows our dogs to experience a reward right on top of the handler. Dogs gravitate to where the reward is, and without the tug as a reward in our toolbox, it's easy for our dogs to decide that they'd rather not hang out that close to us.
Three Rules of Tugging
The following 3 rules should be strictly followed when doing any tugging:
*Tugging incorrectly can damage your game. Please follow the rules.
Tugging can be used for:
Tugging
Sometimes we will want to break a game, and bring the excitement to a halt. Maybe our dog is blowing off a command, blowing off a disc, or otherwise doing something that is unacceptable. What we want to do in this situation is to break the game. Make a clear connection to the behavior, and drastically draw down the excitement level of the game.
Passive Break
A passive break is when we wait for the dog to disengage from the game. There is no pressure. The dog decides when this boring part of the game is over and when we can start to play again. This is good for times when a normally solid behavior is not done well, and when pressure could be a problem, or when reducing excitement might help your dog succeed. Retrieving to the hand comes to mind.
Active Break
Actively breaking the game is an option as well. Asking the dog lie down or sit, and wait. This forced break of the game is good for flagrant disobedience, habitual problems, frustration, or for dogs that are extremely driven and will not disengage from a game. You can also use an active break to build drive and suspense in order to get high energy performance.
Packing It In
Completely ending the game and ‘packing it in’ can be a viable tool for completely unacceptable behavior. Unrequested biting, habitual blowing off of discs, refusal to drop; all of these come to mind.
Packing it in is, to the high drive dog, a death sentence. It is a harsh punishment, and lessons are often learned quickly. Nothing is worse to some dogs than having a game of disc cut short.
Putting it all together
This is probably the most important reward in the Consequent Game. It is also the most complex. In essence, when your dog is honoring your request, the game is exciting, when your dog is not honoring your requests, create a lull or break in the game before you try again, or shift gears to something else entirely.
You control the excitement of the game. Create peaks and valleys within your game. Peak the excitement as a reward for good play, drop into an excitement valley for behavior that is not desireable. This simple act of manipulating the excitement level based upon performance can be very powerful.