Do you have a toy motivated dog? Consider yourself lucky. None of our dogs are what I would call toy motivated, although occasionally I can convince Brego to run for a squeaky ball or rabbit skin. However, for us the excitement of a toy wears off very quickly. Luckily there are several toys and throwable treat containers available. Our favorite is a Viewtainer. Viewtainers are spill-proof containers made to hold nails, screws, nuts, and other bits and pieces of construction hardware. Little did they know that agility people would get hold of their product! Super simple design makes the Viewtainer super simple to use—both ends come off which makes cleaning a snap. One end has a slit that you squeeze to open it and dispense treats. We started out by filling the Viewtainer with treats and letting the dog (Tucker is the only one who uses it) sniff it and get excited about it. Then after getting his excitement up, Emma would roll it a short distance and praise Tucker for chasing it. Little by little we worked with him until he started to pick up the Viewtainer. Once he started retrieving it reliably, it was ready to use for agility training! It is especially handy for getting his speed up on obstacles like tunnels and the weave poles.
--Olivia
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