Obsessive behaviour with toys?

Bailey acts weird when he gets a toy/bottle outside, he'll rip out the grass around the item and looks like he's in a frenzy. He won't listen to commands, considering his recall is about 90% (always room for improvement) but we bought him one of these - http://www.petsathome.com/shop/kong-safestix-small-85303 - today and took him up the fields, I threw it for him and he chased, then started ripping out the grass round about it and running away from me, it was like someone flicked a switch and he just went deaf and wouldn't listen to anything, wouldn't take a drink or a treat or anything! As soon as he couldn't see the toy he started to calm down and after 5-10 minutes his recall was back, listening to commands, drinking etc. How do I get him to understand it's not acceptable to act like that with toys? Should I put him back on his training lead and when he gets it, recall and reel him in?

Yes, going back to the training lead would be a good idea IMO; he needs to learn that he can only have fun with the toys if the game centres around you.

Try asking him to focus on you/give you eye contact before he can have the toy. It might be an idea to leave the fetch for now and just play tug with lots of 'drops' and 'waits' throughout the game - asking him to focus on you before starting the game again. Then gradually start to reintroduce fetch like you would with a puppy, train him to bring the toy back for a game of tug to begin with.

Agree with the above. I'd also try only using the toy for a little while and then putting it away.

The thing is, in the house or the back door he's perfect. Drops the toy, waits till I say he can get it, but up the field he just rips the grass out and runs away with the toy? It's very strange! But will try putting him back on his training lead again and taking it from there, thanks!

They can act very differently outside and are harder to train.

Yeah I've realised jstaff haha, I'll take him back to basics on the long line and see how we go!

StuW wrote:The thing is, in the house or the back door he's perfect. Drops the toy, waits till I say he can get it, but up the field he just rips the grass out and runs away with the toy? It's very strange! But will try putting him back on his training lead again and taking it from there, thanks!

He just hasn't generalised the behaviour yet and needs to learn to do the same thing in other areas.

It's very common for people to see their dog do what they want in one place but if they behave differently when asked to do the same thing in another place, people think it's strange/dog's stubborn/being naughty etc. when they're not, they just haven't learnt to do that behaviour in other places too. They don't generalise things easily like we do.