Hey y’all, I recently got a service dog Joy (German Shepherd+ Mallinois mix) and she is the cutest and I love her, but I’m struggling to figure out how to yoyo around her. She gets very excited and either tries to get the yoyo or jump up on me. I don’t want to hurt her with the yoyo, especially since she’s a service animal, but I don’t know how to convince my doggie shadow to let me yoyo 
Any tips?
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My dog has no interest in my yo-yos my cats though. Cats love yo. Feed them that’s the answer food is a strong distraction
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Not sure I can help much here unfortunately. Mine leaves the room every time I start throwing. He’s not a fan. Never been hit with one or anything, just a sense of self preservation I guess, haha.
If she’s a service animal, she’s probably pretty trainable, maybe you can eventually get her to lie down a little away from you with plenty of treat manipulation.
Adorable BTW, mine’s a Corman (German Shepherd + Corgi Mix). He has a big GS head and long body, with tiny little legs, haha.
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I have two dogs and my youngest would want to play and jump up at it. The best trick i found that worked was desensitizing them to it. I would hold the throw and touch them with it, mildly tap them with it (while holding in my hand) so they get a feel that its a hard object lol, I would tether him to furniture so he couldn’t lunge at it, and start throwing. He would watch, want to jump at it and show interest in “catching it” eventually they get bored of it and don’t pay any attention to it, and is becomes “just another weird thing humans do”.
My old-old small dog…she doesn’t care and has absolutely zero sense of self preservation, walks in front of it and doesn’t if it swings in proximity.. havent figured that one out yet lol.
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My two girls are pretty oblivious to it!
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Beautiful dog.
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My almost blind deaf dog I am just super duper careful around, I try to do no risk muscle memory tricks when she comes my way for both our safety. My other dog is a rescue that previous owner mistreated and she doesn’t like the yoyo so if she wants to chill on the couch with me, I set down the yoyo for her.
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Mine is a golden doodle I use blue and yellow strings and yoyos so he can see it and know what I’m doing as dogs can see blue and shades of yellow
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One of my dogs is very interested in my yoyo. She’s definitely a communist when it suits her, especially if there’s a toy she could be playing with, but isn’t. And of course my other dog is interested in whatever my first doggo is interested in. Not necessarily for the same reason, but now I gotta fend off two dogs.
Hopefully, that helps explain why most of my tricks tend to be forward pass based
(Exception to this is when I’m walking them. There are more interesting things during walks than my yoyo, such as dead critters, other dog’s fuel byproducts, grass, etc)
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My dogs never cared about it. Cats only had interest when they were kittens!
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Nice thing about dog is he keeps he cats away so dog in my case removes the cats from my play
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Mine just let’s out a loud sigh soon as he see the string going on my finger and then gets on the couch or bed and grunts about it…
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Sighing like they pay the bills
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i swear, as a cat person, dog owners say the strangest things. see as a cat brain, the answer is exceedingly simple: A. animal gets put in a different room or B. yoyo takes place in a different room. dog ppl seem to never consider doing an activity of any sort sans dog 
love yall anyway ya buncha loonies 
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My dog doesnt care about the yo, if she wants pets shes coming up. In which case I’ll put the yoyo away till shes out of the way. My cats get in the way on purpose because they want me to stop and play with them instead. 
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When she was a puppy, loved trying to catch the yo-yo, but in a playful way. Today, she doesn’t care about it. To think that this first photo, where she’s with the YYJ Speed Maker on top of her, is already 6 years old. How time flies…
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Thank you for sharing your tips y’all! We’ve been making some progress and the idea of letting her sniff the yoyo, especially while it’s spinning, helped her realize she doesn’t want to be right next to it even though it does make her excited.
The biggest breakthrough was when she realized she could play with her own toy while I played with mine Now to conquer 4a with a dog lol
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Also, your dogs are adorable! And to answer some questions:
I too would prefer to be yoyoing senza doggo @Splizacular but my dog did not approve my request lol. We will figure it out somehow
The tethering idea is an interesting one and I’d like to look into that, especially for 4a @Son-of-Morris
And yes, since she’s a service dog she is very trainable. I just am figuring out how to train her since she had a professional trainer that I worked with periodically and I am definitely not a professional dog trainer
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always reinforce desired behavior with some sort of treat. start with small intervals. yoyo for 1 or 2 min and reward for no interference. but eliminate fail states. if you know she can’t make it for 3 min, for example, reward her before she fails. then gradually increase the interval before a treat is delivered. if she interferes before the interval is up, stop and reset but don’t respond with anger. positive reinforcement for success is a better motivator than any other method, especially punishment for failure. it’s WAY easier to encourage any living thing to do something than it is to discourage it from undesired behavior. shaping good behavior will always be more successful than punishing bad, like exponentially so
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misread this as “how do you throw your dog around” and had a good laugh
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