Did you have to teach your dog to fetch?

Just curious. Someone had mentioned teaching their dog to fetch the ball back and I realized that none of my dogs have ever had to be taught to bring the ball back, they just naturally do. (Of the ones that play with toys of course)

With the ball? Not really. I had to teach her that it comes ALL the way back before the game continues though.

I had to shape her formal retrieve though and now we practise retrieving everything.

Yes, classic needed the whole two ball trick, Zuma was clicker trained to retrieve and even though Zinga is a natural I'm still clickering it to strengthen it.

Lucy has zero retrieve whatsoever. No interest in balls either. She will chase her stuffies when I throw them, but once she gets there she loses interest when she realizes it's not a real squirrel.

Nope didn't have to teach it.

Yoshi loves her toys so when I throw it she automatically runs to it. But Yoshi loves people more so she usually brings it back to the nearest person as quick as she can.

Jose` retrieves better than my Lab did. LOL. I kid you not. He's really into the game. But he doesn't pester me if I can't play with him at the moment. I don't really remember if I had to teach him exactly. But must have inadvertently. He just wanted to play with me and he liked running after the ball. So, I guess he figured if he was going to get to run after the ball again and again, he'd have to bring it back to me, the thrower. So, throwing the ball and having me engaged with him were the rewards. And pretty soon he found out how cool it is to bring it back, run after it again over and over. It's just a really fun game for him.

Heavens yes. Meg had to be trained to care about the toy at all. Gusto has to be trained not the take the toy and go have a party by himself. Note 'has'. I still haven't done that.

That is zinga. She'll bring it back three times and then say screw it and play with it herself. Hence the clickering.

My dad used to raise hunting dogs (labs and pointers) and said Beau had the best natural retrieve of any dog he's ever had. lol Of course that was before we had Mia.

LOL Meg = Kimma, and Gusto = Pentti. Bubbles is somewhere in between

Juno is not the greatest fetch player, so if I really cared she could use some work. She''ll go get the ball but doesn't always bring it back; sometimes she'll bring it halfway and want me to finish the trip, sometimes she just runs laps with it in her mouth. lol. And then if she does bring it all the way back, good luck actually getting it back from her... usually she just prances off again if you try to grab it.

But fetch isn't like.... something that I really enjoy doing with my dogs, so I can't ever see myself taking the time to train it, even if they showed zero natural ability.

Kim -- Naturally had interest in a thrown object, needed some training/encouragement to bring it back

Webster -- Needed to be taught every painstaking detail of the retrieve, from caring about the object (any object) in the first place to touching it to mouthing it to picking it up to moving with it to ... yeah you get the idea.

Mira -- Uh, no. I threw a toy in the toy basket a few days after she came home. I looked down and there was Puppy with the toy in her mouth, waiting at my feet. I threw a party and she was like "That's nice but really I just want you to make it fly again." Three days later she was retrieving in puppy class, right past all the other people and puppies.

Mia sometimes drops the ball annoyingly far away. Somehow she's learned that if she drops the ball too far and I tell her 'It's too far', she must kick it the rest of the way to me. She has this habit of picking it up then dropping it in the exact same spot. Nope Mia, it's still too far.

But most the time she drops it really close.

Yes, they had to be taught. Most of mine I ask to pick up/carry a great many objects that aren't as entertaining as a ball. I find that toys/stuffies/food like things are way easier than stone, wood, or metal objects.

I tried. Zander was not amused in the slightest and mostly gave me a look that said, "Stupid woman". His interest in balls is zero.

He'll take things to people/places, though. Give him a pencil and tell him to go give it to Daddy or tell him to put his toys away and he's on it. But it is absolutely below him to fetch balls. Or even look at balls.

No, she used to have an awesome retrieve. Now you throw something and she looks at you like "why you do that?!" and then tries to make you go fetch it

We only fetch fun things usually here. I don't really have much of an interest in formal obedience and real retrieves.

Upendi still doesn't retrieve, it's just not fun for her. She honestly acts like it's below her. On the other hand retrieving came extremely naturally for Mina and she adores it, I'd go as far as to say it is by far her favorite game. Cara will chase after things and pick them up, but she doesn't always want to bring them back and will sometimes choose to amuse herself, it's not something I care enough about right now to really train a better retrieve though.

As I think you know, yep! It's definitely worked too. I mean, his first year he NEVER fetched at all, and I just thought oh well, I don't have a fetching dog. But then I started to teach him it CAN be fun. So we did training on a long line so I could gently pull him and remind him to bring it back. I did use treats to train it. Now he fetches indoors just for the fun of it, we have a super long hallway. But outdoors is still a work in progress. Frisbee is our next mission and it's coming along nicely very quickly, so I'm happy I've ALWAYS wanted a fetching dog. One I can just take to the park and throw the ball and have them bring it back, I just love it. Oh but surprisingly the one thing he's always had major drive for is pool toys, he always dives in the pool after a toy. Dunno why.

Backup, yes, he's uber possessive. Sloan, no, she is obsessive with fetch by nature. The pit bulls, I don't bother.