Have you heard about this super fun toy & training game you can play with your dog?

A Flirt Pole is a tug toy attached to the end of a rope, which is attached to a pole that you control. You maintain control of the toy with the rigid end of the pole so that you can move the toy around for your dog to engage with! It can be a fun toy, an exercise tool, and our personal favorite: a training reinforcement tool.

Our Favorite Flirt Poles:

What makes the Flirt Pole different from a regular toy?

You Keep Control: When we use a regular toy as a reward, when tossed your dog can decide whether or not to bring it back. We can spend a lot of time teaching our dog to bring toys back, but the flirt pole gives us a convenient short cut! That’s not to say we don’t teach great release-on-cue skills, but it’s nice to keep ourselves involved in the game a bit more easily!
The Flirt Pole Toy Moves! A Flirt Pole can also be more engaging for most dogs than a regular toy. If you have a pup that isn’t as interested in regular toys, this may be the perfect solution to get them engaged! When you toss a regular toy, it essentially “dies” and loses its excitement. With the Flirt Pole, you continuously have the ability to make the scenario more or less exciting depending on what you need.

The ability to control the toy easily, and make it move in exciting ways, really makes the flirt pole a great option to be used as a training reinforcer. You can easily make it vary in excitement based on your dog’s behavior. We can change the value of the toy and be very responsive to how engaging it is because we have prompt control of the toy. For example, if we are teaching our dog how to release a toy on cue, we can make the toy go flat, or “die”, to make it less exciting, prompting our dogs to release the toy.

What flirt pole games & skills should you teach?
Teaching good play skills is an important part of using & training with the flirt pole correctly & successfully.

I teach the following foundation skills as part of my flirt pole routine:

Get Toy on Cue - Our flirt-pole-playing pups need to know when we are ready to start the game! I teach “Get It” means it’s time to grab the toy to play!
Release When You Freeze / Release When You Cue - Releasing when you are ready for a pause in the game is so important. I start by freezing the toy (making it boring), then immediately the game starts again when the dog lets go of the toy. After dog is quickly letting go of the toy, I start adding in a verbal release cue.
Stimulus Control: Don’t Chase the Toy Unless Cued - The game doesn’t start until the magic words happen! After my dog has a good understanding of the “Get It” cue means the game is starting, I start adding in longer pauses before I give that cue, and maybe putting the toy in different positions (ground, hand, table, etc.). I reward my dogs for waiting by giving the “Get It” cue while they are doing a calm behavior instead!
Pick Up Dead Toy on the Ground - I teach my dogs a cue that means run to pick up the toy that is lying on the ground, then the game starts. I use this for adding distance & distraction to recall & stay cues, as well as advanced sequences like agility where I might need the toy to be away from my hands during our training.
Settle Between Toy Play - Being able relax and take a break between exciting things is such an important life skill! I use my flirt pole to practice this!

Once I have these foundation skills built, I incorporate the flirt pole as a reinforcer into a training routine for other important life skills!

Here are just a few of the life skills that I have used the flirt pole to train & reinforce:

Good understanding of stimulus control (doing the right behaviors on cue and only on cue)
Building a positive conditioned emotional response for scary or unpleasant things like wearing coats, loud noises, playing in the cold, etc.
Teaching eating skills for dogs who would rather play than eat food
Building good manners skills around exciting environmental distractions
Rocket recall & stays
Tricks & fun!

To learn more about Flirt Poles & see lots of videos for teaching each of these skills, check out our webinar replay on Flirt Pole Games! This webinar goes in depth on how we teach great flirt pole skills and how we use it correctly in our training structure!