 If I pull back, she's going to drive it right to me. If I pull back, she's going to drive it right to me. Plots. Sit. Yes. Go ahead. Out. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the coolest dog training channel right here on YouTube. I'm Tom Davis, America's canine educator. That's Lakota. Today I'm going to be going over, should you play tug with your dog, yes or no? Yes. I want to ask you the question of if you should play tug with your dog or not. The answer really just depends on your relationship with the dog. Now I primarily taught a lot of my behaviors with my dog Lakota here on an object such as a ball or a tug toy. And when we say tug, it doesn't necessarily mean the actual tug toy. It could be anything that your dog can possess that you can possess on the other end. That being said, there's certainly some precautionary things that you should do before you start playing tug with the dog. Now as a general rule, you should obviously never give a dog you don't know an item that they could possess heavily, which means something that they can resource guard because it's a high resource. Just like back in the old days when people would settle into an area and possess resources, minerals, gold, water, caribou, buffalo, etc., they would guard it at all costs because it's of high value. I think the better question to ask is how good is your relationship with your dog? So yes, the tug toy or plain tug with your dog can not only be an extraordinary training technique and method, but it's also groundbreaking in building a relationship with your dog as far as threshold building, impulse control, obedience in general, and all of the other things that go into play when you're developing a relationship with your dog. It's really about control. If you can tell your dog, hey, stop doing that and they go, okay, and then you say, now you can have it, boom, that's a really great relationship with the dog. So again, I think the question is more about how much control do you have with that dog and how well do you know that dog? Now with that being said, there's certainly some times you should never play tug with the dog. If you don't have a relationship with the dog or if you don't know that dog well or if you've never temperament tested this dog, say it's in a shelter environment, a foster environment, or just a dog that you've just met at a park and they brought you a stick, you have to be really careful when you're handling certain things that are coming from a dog's mouth because their first line of defense, if they get upset or possessive is to obviously potentially bite you or nip you. Now one of the theories behind not playing tug with your dog is the simple fact of it building aggression. I had an online session yesterday with a client and she said that her trainer told her to never play tug with your dog because it'll bring a lot of aggression issues and possession issues. Now with dog training, as you guys know, my philosophy is very variant on the dog and the owner and handler. So yes, to some degree, the dog could get possessive or aggressive towards a human if they are guarding something for sure. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you should never do it with any dog. I was able to teach her a lot of different things you're seeing today on the camera four years later at six months old just with a dish towel. So let's face it, dogs love playing tug of war and if you can take that tug of war and that drive to say I want this really bad and then influence that with obedience, you're in baby. That's all it really takes to really build that drive and you don't have to constantly be cutting up food, getting food, losing food. You just have something that your dog can chew on and play tug with you with. Now a great example of a tug toy would be this 12 inch canine tactical gear tug toy. It's basically made out of a canvas material with stuffing inside with two ends at the at both ends of the tug toy. Now I prefer playing tug with my dog with both ends because I'm able to really control the tug when I'm tugging with the dog, whether or not having any handles or just one handle. Oftentimes dogs that aren't familiar with playing tug will bite the end of the handle because they're not that confident in what they should bite and what they shouldn't. So if you have a tug toy with just one handle, the chances of them biting that handle are pretty high if they've never played tug before. So getting yourself a tug with two handles at the end of the tug is going to be the most beneficial for anybody that's learning how to play tug with their dog. Now for those of you who aren't familiar with how to play tug with your dog or where to start, there's a great video by Michael Ellis that's out that I'll leave in the description below and he goes over the mechanics and the do's and don'ts of how to play tug with your dog and the benefits of playing tug with your dog. So let me paint you a perfect picture of how playing tug with your dog can go wrong. Say you've adopted a dog that is four months or older and they're starting to mature and you bring them home and they've never seen a ball and they've never seen a tug or a squeak or toy or anything for that matter and then you give it to them. You have to realize that dogs are animals and they're going to act like animals when put into a situation or that drive or that primalistic instincts kick in. So if they have something and they're like, hey, I've never had this before, this is the best thing ever, they might get potentially possessive and you're like, well, I saw this one guy playing tug with his dog and it was awesome and then you go and try to grab it. That's where you're going to see that aggression. That's where you're going to see that potential resource guarding because you don't have that relationship with the dog to say, drop it out, leave it, go to your place and so on and so forth. And I'm going to show you in this video a couple demonstrations of how you can address these situations with a coda. Hey guys, I almost forgot about the spacebar challenge. When I say go, you have to hit the spacebar, like this video and leave your answer in the comments below. And I'm going to be giving away one free online training with me. You can train, you can train with me all over the world on Skype or FaceTime or on the phone and we can talk about your dog. Ready, set, go. How many teeth does an adult dog have? Leave your answers in the comments below. And at the same exact time, we have to be empathetic to the dog. They don't know you that well either. So they don't know the difference between you trying to take and rip something away from them and playing tug, which is why I suggest people to just learn how to play tug with their dog first. So that's where you're going to see a lot of that conflict. And that's why some trainers may say, oh, no, no, no, never do that because they've seen that behavior once or they read it in a book or whatever. But I'm here to tell you I have taught so many dogs beautifully with only using an object to teach a dog what I want them to do and what I don't want them to do. So it's an absolutely beautiful, beautiful way to teach a dog certain things with timing. And again, it builds relationship with your dog. And as this video progresses, you guys are going to see a bunch of B-roll of playing tug with my dog and how beneficial it is to just have that on and off switch. So again, there certainly are safety protocols that you should take before you play tug with any dog. And one of those is just basic obedience, teaching your dog how to out something and then teaching your dog how to release. And if you guys know, I'm really big about the break command. So when I take this, let's see if I can get this in frame. Stay, Kota. Good. And then I think you guys can see that. Kota, break. Boom. So she has all the impulse control to go and get the object when I want her to. Now, if I pull her out like this, and I hope you guys can see her in the frame, I grab the tug. She's going to rip, just getting excited. She's getting excited. Good girl. Now, if I pull back, she's going to drive it right to me. If I pull back, she's going to drive it right to me. So she's hitting me with it. She's chasing me with it. She doesn't want me to take it from her. She wants to play tug. So it's not out. It's not this that she loves. It's the idea of playing tug that she loves with me. It's a great relationship builder. And again, watch my impulse control with her. I'm going to bring her out, put it right in front of her face. I have great impulse control with her. Yes, I ask her, yes, she can take it. She can play tug. Now, again, if I move away, she's going to follow me around. And she's going to try to keep giving it to me, because she likes playing tug. And that's the beauty of the game. Quote out, you ask your dog to out. You send them away. Go touch. And that's just a beautiful way on how to start your relationship with your dog. And so obviously, you guys are watching this video. If you thought before that playing tug with your dog made them aggressive, I hope that this video is helpful to you guys to just understand that in dog training, it's much like being a chef or really anything in the sports industry. If there's no real wrong or right way to doing things, if you can throw your own twist on it, I hope this video was helpful for you guys. I truly do. I hope it raises awareness to unlocking a tug game with your dog, because it's so crucial in their relationship and development with you. If you guys liked this video, like right here, subscribe to my channel, and leave a comment below and let me know what you thought of this video. And I will talk to you guys next time. Peace, yes.