Retrieving Play

[Rileys mum]

Hi all.

I'm wanting to try and teach my dog that retrieving and tug play is fun. At the moment he looks at me like I'm a complete fool as if to say " why throw things away mum. " he's 10 months old at the moment and I feel that he just doesn't understand the fun in what I'm asking ( because he doesn't get what i want) are there methods to teach him to play and enjoy retrieving and tugging?

I've begun tossing and throwing a toy to myself and having a blast and Riley is starting to show interest in what I'm doing :D is this a good start? I'm not letting him play with the toy just yet.

Thanks in advance

[Zug Zug]

Does he pick anything up in his mouth in normal play? If he does, you can start by encouraging that and each time he picks something up you start a game of chase, then turn around quickly and offer a reward (to trade for whatever he has in his mouth), etc. It's really easy to teach in this case. If only all dogs had this natural behaviour!

But lots of dogs don't naturally pick things up, so...

You might need to teach him to pick something up in his mouth. You do this in stages. Hold something in front of him and click/treat him for looking at it, then for sniffing it, then for putting his teeth on it, then (gradually) you move to the point where you are clicking him for biting it, then holding it in his mouth. This usually takes a little while - almost always a number of sessions over a number of days. It can be frustrating but you need to be patient and creative. He'll get it in the end. When he does it often happens very quickly.

Then, once he's able to take it happily in his mouth, you start asking him to do that from a lower and lower start position, until he's picking it up from the floor in front of you (while sitting, then while you are standing).

Then it's an easy progression to throwing it small distances etc. to fetch it back to you for his reward. And also to getting him to fetch other things. Usually you need to take a few steps back to get them used to picking up something different, but once they've got a few fetch toys under their belt, they'll fetch lots of stuff from then on. Except metal. Metal is an acquired taste.

[Rileys mum]

Thanks :D I'll bring it all back to basics with him. He doesn't consistently pick things up so I think, as u explained, I need to show him what I want

cheers again.

[Paul Bright]

Hi! How is the training going? Here is a short video I found that might help you out:

http://www.ehow.com/video_4973108_teach-dog-fetch.html

I hope it helps!!!

[Rileys mum]

Hi,

thanks for the video link. It was very helpful. I've subconsciously been doing much of Whats in it which is good to know I wasn't completely on the wrong track lol.

He's starting to show interest in the toys I'm using bit by bit so he's definately getting the idea :D

[SmoothieGirl]

AGAIN, I can't remember the name of the link, but NATSU CHAN sent me an awesome site to do this.

It reverse trains the retrieve. Bronte is a great fetcher now.

Maybe PM her.

Edited November 18, 2010 by SmoothieGirl