Teach The Dog To Pick Up The Toys

[mumof3]

I'm preparing for the arrival of our first pet dog. Before now we have had only working dogs. BC's kelpies and blue cattles and a fair variety of crosses of these breeds. We have trained our own working dogs and even got involved in some low level cattle trailing. We are comfortable with training sit, stop, stay, behind, come, push up, over, by. We have never used anything but praise as a reward. We are also comfortable with how to be the leader of the pack. This whole pet scenario thing is a new one on us, and I believe that dogs are happiest when they have a clear position and role to play in their pack. They love to do things for you. I'd like to teach our pup to put away the kids toys.

Our puppy will be a Brittany (gun dog breed). I would love some advice on what training would need to occur before teaching the dog to put toys which are strewn around the living room into the toy box, how to actually train a dog to do this and at what age a dog might be able to start learning this. This is just a good fun helpful thing the pup could learn to do. It is a training opportunity that is there at the right time of day for me (when the kids have gone to bed). It'd be great to have a pup that not only eats the scraps from under the table after tea, but then goes and puts all the toys away and lastly curls up on the lounge for a cuddle, having done its work for the day.

After it has mastered all that I'll find out how to get it to fold the washing

All advice on helping a working dog person convert to pet ownership gratefully received.

[Tilly]

I tried teaching my older boy when he was a puppy .... I got him to put a toy in ... but then he would find another 2 or 3 to take out and play with

Good luck

[TerraNik]

My two put their toys away.

I taught them to retrieve a toy to my hand then held my hand over the toy box and shaped them to drop it in the box. My boy loves the game so much that he'll empty the box when he's done just so he gets to do it all again!!

I'm sure there'd be some how-to videos on YouTube.